Anax Tristis
by Katsu
Summary: After the events of Borealis, the boys are split up between three cities. Duo and Wufei, remaining in Tokyo, become involved in investigating a bizarre series of murders that seem to center around supernatural creatures. Even as they on stalking the kille
1. Default Chapter

Anax Tristis 1 

Anax Tristis  
_Introduction_

_Our Father who art in Heaven: Hallowed by Thy name.   
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done  
On Earth as it is in Heaven_

Red neon, obscuring the stars. Red blood, glowing with its own internal light.  
Stained glass window. Pew. Concrete under my cheek.  
Fire searing my eyes. 

_Give us this day our daily bread_

A man in the stiff white collar of a priest. A woman with silver streaks in her hair.  
Soft fur against my fingertips, against my cheek, white as alabaster.  
The smell of blood so thick that I can't breathe. 

_And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us_

Bang.  
More blood, from nose and eyes and ears, from my mouth like obscene words.  
And over it all, a man out of the renaissance with hair like a lemon sunrise - 

_And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil... _

- reciting the Lord's Prayer into infinity. 

* * *

_Chapter 1_

"Nightmares again." It wasn't a question. We'd been doing this way too often. 

I licked the salt of dried-up sweat off my upper lip, scraping my bangs away from my eyes with my right hand. My left was tingling its way back to life; I must've been sleeping on it. "Yeah." 

Heero was perched on the end of my bed like some kind of weird bird of prey, hawk beak nose and all. His eyes were big in the darkness, black like the would swallow me. Without wasting more words, he handed over a chilly tumbler of water. 

All part of the routine. 

The water was cool on my tongue. Cool was good. All of a sudden, I decided that I didn't like being pressed under so many layers of blankets. I kicked them off, revealing my mostly naked self to the frigid air. The important bits were covered with a pair of black silk boxers, complete with bright yellow smiley faces. Gotta love Quatre's birthday present humor. Sweat crystallized on my pale shoulders and chest, giving me an immediate nipple hard-on. The shock felt good. 

I leaned back and looked at the grey blur of the ceiling. "Sorry, man." 

"It is not an issue. I'm used to it." 

Pretty wordy, for Heero. "Yeah, I know. That's what I'm sorry about." 

"Not necessary." 

"Yeah." I finished off the water. "So..." Search for a thread of conversation to fill that silence. Search, boy! "Which train are you taking tomorrow?" 

"The first Hikari leaves at 6:45. I intend to take that one." That sounded about right. Heero was just that kind of disgusting morning person. He took the tumbler back from my unresisting hand, cool fingers brushing mine. My stomach did an odd little flip around all the cool water. 

"Oh." I still wasn't sure how I felt about us getting split up... 

Aw, who the fuck was I kidding? I knew exactly how I felt. It was bad enough that Quatre was headed off to Kyoto with Trowa in tow, but with Heero off to Nagoya...the thought of him that far away was enough to get some severe anxiety flowing. 

At least our personal Mad Scientists were leaving me Wufei. The guy was just about the brother I never had, crossed with some kung-fu flick mystical monk, and I sure was happy to have him still around, but... 

But it just wasn't the same. Not that I could really admit that to myself, since that would've meant admitting a whole bunch of other shit that I kept under my emotional bed, along with several hundred dust bunnies and a dog-eared copy of 'Sense and Sensibility.' 

My mouth followed along with the thought, bypassing my brain. "This sucks." 

Heero shrugged. 

'Quit while you're ahead' didn't exist in my vocabulary. Especially not at three in the morning when I hadn't been sleeping well and just finished another weird-ass nightmare. "Why the hell do they have to split us all up any way?" 

"For the good of the mission." Of course. 

"Any idea when you'll be back?" 

Heero gave me a look that told me on no uncertain terms that I was a moron. "Have they told you?" 

"No." 

He shrugged again. "You understand." 

Oh, I did, all right. All too well. They never told us anything...but we weren't supposed to be thinking too much about it anyway. I sat up a little, leaning forward. "I just don't get it. Wu-man and I make a great team, yeah, but you and I have always been the best." 

"I am also the one that works best alone." 

I snorted. "Biology. Lone wolf doesn't last too long, huh? You have a great track record of getting blown up when you're alone, too." 

"They know that." Nonchalant shrug, like it didn't matter. 

That kind of pissed me off. Maybe it was fear, because I've had my share of nightmares about Heero getting himself killed like a...well...hero. Maybe it was because I'd already lost him once, and good God above only knew what kind of voodoo I'd pulled off the first time, let alone if I'd ever be able to do it again. 

Or maybe it was simpler, just my inner pissant kicking to the surface. After all these years of being exposed to the rest of us, you'd think he could start acting like he actually gave a rat's ass. 

I surged forward, until I was almost nose to nose with him. "Now listen here," I hissed, "because I'm only going to say it once. I have had just about enough of that Perfect Soldier bullshit you feed everyone else, 'cause I ain't buying. You're going to stop talking out your ass like that and you will come back in one piece or I'll find you in the afterlife and kick the unholy shit out of you!" 

His eyes filled my entire world, until I could almost see myself reflected in their darkness. The world seemed to hold still for one moment, until my heart was loud in my ears. 

_Oh Jesus, Oh God, fuckinghellholyshitohmyfuckingchristonapieceoftoast - !_

We kissed. 

I still don't know if it was him or me. It was more like the brain cell we always shared managed to fire off a single command, moving us together at the same time. His lips were stiff and awkward for just a moment, and then they melted against mine in a rush that ran from the roots of my hair to the ends of my toes. 

For a long moment, I was in shock. What the hell was I doing? What was I thinking? What was HE thinking, for God's sake? 

I was kissing Heero Yuy, the object of my first real wet dream. Suddenly, a full-blown Hallelujah chorus complete with angels scattering rose petals and the saints on brass sprang up in my head. 

I WAS KISSING HEERO YUY! 

I pulled away from him for just a moment. He had a confused look on his face, his mouth still slightly open, his lips pouty. It was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. 

"What -" 

I kissed him again, harder this time, and decided to not think any more. I brushed the tip of my tongue across his lips as I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling him to me. After a moment of hesitation, he opened his mouth to me, the only invitation I needed. I darted inside, feeling the smoothness of teeth, tangling with his tongue for a moment and gently brushing the roof of his mouth. 

He moaned softly and almost fell forward on top of me, knocking me over. I was covered, almost engulfed by him, bare skin on skin. I felt like I was about ready to set the bed on fire. My groin was feeling tight and hot like the rest of me; my hard-on was already straining against the boxers. I kissed him again, even more thoroughly as he squirmed against me. My fingers danced their way down his back to his cotton-covered ass, tracing around his cheeks. Heero's muscles stood out like steel. I grabbed, making him growl again, and rolled until he was under me. 

I liked it better that way. Less claustrophobic. And I could also make him slow down a little. Keeping his soft lips locked and muffling any objections he could possible have, I gently explored my way around his chest, callused fingertips taking in the lines of scars, the ripples of his abs and pecs, the wiry strength in his triceps and biceps. He wasn't soft, or smooth like you'd expect in some kind of harlequin romance; neither was I, so fair's fair. 

Heero moaned when I brushed over his nipples, freezing for one tense instant when I pinched one. He arched his back up, grinding his pelvis against mine. 

Well, my my. Heero had a hard-on too. A pretty impressive one. I had to let go of his mouth so I could moan as well, balling up the sheet in my fists. 

He took his opportunity to kiss his way down the front my neck in a wet line, running his tongue and the edge of his teeth over my collarbone. I thought I was going to rip the sheet in half. We ground hips again and again. His teeth found my nipple and he bit gently. My toes almost curled. 

Heero Yuy, Mr. Virgin. Well hooray for instinct. 

My brain started to shut down, and all I could think about was sweet vanilla-smelling skin and sex. Things came faster and faster. I kissed my way around his chest, my fingers working around his lower back, kneading at the hard muscles I found there. Heero was letting out breathy little growls, his hands wandering up and down, not sure where to go but wanting it all. I pinned him with my hips, driving myself crazy with his erection pressing right against mine. However excited I was, it was nothing compared to him, caught for the first time in this particular emotion. 

His eyes were filled with so much unguarded need that it almost frightened me. I thought I had it bad. Fingernails ran down my stomach, making me shiver. He only hesitated for a moment at the waistband of my boxers before diving inside, his hand wrapping around my hot erection. At the same instant, his lips and then surprisingly sharp teeth fastened onto the side of my neck, right on top of the two little puncture scars I had there... 

I froze, my eyes widening with horror. 

Heero realized something was wrong almost immediately. He let go and shoved me away, so forceful that I fell off the bed in a tangle of hair and sheets. Then he was next to me, gun in hand and face blank once more. 

I pulled myself up into a sitting position and rested my face in my hands. I was breathing hard. Heero lowered his gun. "What did you hear?" 

"I didn't hear anything?" 

"Then..." The air seemed to grow colder. "I see." 

It was all too much, way too many emotions in one short space, not to mention the worst fucking hard-on of my life. I giggled, ending in an unhealthy little hiccup. "No, I don't think you do. Give me a minute." 

Heero started to turn away, back stiff. He'd gone from fully erect to flaccid in less than a minute. Unreal. 

"Damnit, Yuy, I said give me a fucking minute!" He stopped, long enough that I could get my breathing under control. I stood, shedding the blankets, and stepped toward him until again we were almost nose to nose. "You have done nothing wrong. So stop beating yourself. I know the look. I just need a minute, okay?" 

He still didn't say anything, so I leaned forward and kissed him. It was like kissing a mannequin. Heero had already gone...somewhere else. 

The dark little dorm room suddenly felt too small. I guess I was curling back into myself, too. Without a word, I let him go, grabbing my jeans from off the floor where they'd been in a crumpled heap. I pulled them on, jangled the pockets to make sure my keys were in there, and yanked a jacket off the hanger by the door. "I'll see you later, then." 

Silence. 

So I walked out into the warm August night, still pulling my jacket on over my bare chest. I walked through the deserted streets, refusing to think and hoping like hell that some punk would try to pick a fight with the skinny high school kid. I ended up in a park by the train station, throwing rocks at the carp in the ornamental pond until the sun rose, setting fire to the Tokyo skyline. I just couldn't appreciate it. I wanted to throw rocks at the fucking sun, too. 

At precisely 6:45, a long, white _shinkansen_ pulled out of the station and sped away with barely a hum. It faded quickly into a smooth line before disappearing altogether. 

I hadn't seen him off. Hadn't said goodbye. 

But that was okay, 'cause I'd told him 'see ya later.' 

Right? 

*** * ***

I was even less fit for human company after the train left, so I decided to take my time heading back. There was no reason for Wufei to suffer for my shitty night. School wasn't starting up again for another couple days anyway. 

I found myself a coffee and croissant on a corner in Akihabara, where a little old lady that couldn't have been less than a hundred years old or more than four feet tall had a rickety wooden cart, complete with faded paper umbrella. After scalding my tongue and getting large flakes of pastry down the front of my jacket, I was feeling almost human again. Still fucking depressed, but human at least. Time to head back. 

As I scouted around for the nearest train station, a weird sound caught my attention. Akihabara was already busy, full of cars, chattering people, and beeping cel phones...but it wasn't a place where people cried. 

I turned a corner into a cold alley in the shadow of one of the skyscrapers. There, on a blue plastic bench under a wire rain shelter, sat a woman in a white dress. She had blonde hair, bright even under the dull shadows. 

Relena. 

Questions ran in a herd through my mind, foremost what the hell she was doing at a bus stop. No driver in sight, no nasty pink car. Nothing. For a moment, I teetered, not sure of what to do, not sure if I could handle dealing with her this morning, especially looking that upset. 

She made up my mind for me. Those big blue eyes, full of tears, found mine and widened with surprise. 

"Duo?" she whispered. 

"In the flesh." Maybe she'd broken a nail, or her butler'd finally walked out on her. Pretty unworthy thoughts, but I was in a snarky mood. The universe could bite me. 

"Duo..." It hadn't been an intentional whisper. Let's try 'hoarse with grief' next time, with a side of 'shaking hands' and 'bloodshot eyes'. 

"No need to wear my name out. What's going on?" I gave her my most charming grin. It didn't even feel too flat. Go me. 

She covered here eyes with her hands, taking in a shaky breath. "I just saw one of my friends..." 

I resisted the weird, paternal instinct that came out of nowhere, screaming at me to hug her or something mushy like that. "And?" 

"She's been murdered." 


	2. Chapter 2

Anax Tristis 2 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 2_

"Murdered?" I snapped my mouth shut so fast that I almost bit my tongue in half. 

When she looked up at me again, her face was pale but composed. I couldn't even begin to guess what that control cost her. In her lap, her hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists. "I-isn't that what people normally call it when someone's d-dead and covered with...with b-blood?" 

I nodded, ignoring her shaking voice. This was a place I'd been too many times in the past. It wasn't a very pleasant one. "Do you know - scratch that." Go, Mr. Sensitivity. 

She snorted a little bubble of strained laughter out of her nose. "No, I don't. I saw the blood, and...damnit," Shit, I'd never heard her cuss before - must've been my good influence. "I screamed. Like a scared little girl. They rushed me out. I didn't want to see it!" 

I sighed internally as she bowed her head, hiding behind streams of flaxen hair. I don't know how, but she was managing to pull up all of my orphanage-era mannerisms like ghosts I'd almost forgotten. It was rather disturbing. "Hey," I said, "Don't kick yourself. Plenty of other people around to do that." 

The look she shot me could have curdled cream. I didn't mind too much - sometimes anger is a good base to grab on to. Doubly so if it's the only one available. 

"You should be happy that you're not used to dealing with this shit, you know?" I said, a little sweeter that time. 

"I didn't stop running until I arrived here, and realized I was lost. I'm scared," she admitted, and sniffed in a rather unladylike fashion. If I hung around long enough, she'd probably end up wiping her nose on her sleeve next, and then it'd all be over. "What if it's one of those...things? I haven't said a word, I swear, but what if they're after me anyway?" 

Well, shave my balls with a rusty razor - I hadn't even managed to have that paranoid thought yet. Showed how distracted I was. "Fuck." I said, and really meant it. "What - never mind, you don't know. Shit. Who as it?" 

"Dorothy Catalonia." 

"I don't think I've met her." 

Another bubble of hysterical laughter popped. "You'd remember if you had." 

"Okay, then the sixty-four million new yen question is where." 

Her eyes were wide with shock. "You want to go there?" 

"Want, no. But I think at this point I **have** to. Fuck." And I really, really meant it. 

*** * ***

I left Relena in Akihabara with a fresh double espresso, sweet as sex, black as witch's heart at midnight. Coffee cures all ills, right? Or at least you don't care as much when you're blitzed out of your gourd with sugar and caffeine. I figured that the amazing butler boy would be looking for her pretty soon anyway. 

Man, that whole 'Relena acting human' thing was still weirding me out. 

The dorm room was a required stop for what I was planning. I tried not to look at the other bed with its neatly folded blankets as I ripped the mattress off my own. The room still fucking smelled like Heero. 

After some digging, I extracted my shoulder rig and a police issue Beretta 9mm from the box spring - the better to look the part with, my dear. My stash of fake ID cards was next, with the one I wanted right on top. I'd had to use it less than a month before to get a records search started. 

Clean shirt, actually ironed, tucked in and buttoned properly. Black slacks with creases sharp enough to cut celery, regulation thin black leather belt, lock-picking kit cleverly disguised as a pager and cel phone. Okay, so maybe that last one wasn't quite regulation, but it looked the part. Shoulder rig. The hated tie, black silk edition - damned nooses. I topped it all off with a black blazer to hide the rig and keep me warm - it was starting to get pretty nippy out there, as I'd discovered during my Akihabara stop. I checked myself out in the mirror. 

I looked like a frigging mortician. I couldn't help but grin at that as I slipped a pair of gold-rimmed, non-prescription glasses on. They made me look just a little older, easily mid-twenties. It also helped that I'd hit my final growth spurt during my last adventure and filled out a bit. PE could have its uses. If I'd wanted to really go for the gold medal, I could have put powder in my hair too, to grey it a bit, but I hated trying to wash that shit out. Same went for makeup. There was no need to get elaborate for now. 

I winked at the hottest mortician on the planet. Show time. 

*** * ***

It wasn't too hard to find the place Relena had directed me too. The building itself wasn't too remarkable - compared to the architecture generally found in Ueno, it was downright plain. It was a shared school mini-tower, maybe seven stories tall, mostly glass and steel with a little bit of aesthetically colored concrete in that style that was supposed to look futuristic and full of hope but just came out as post-modern soulless. If buildings could try just a little too hard, this one was. 

No, what made it easy to spot was the fact that every damn cop in Tokyo, and probably several imported specially from Yokohama as well were swarming it. The little white and black breadboxes that the police pretended were cruisers surrounded the building on all sides, lights rolling. If I'd been home, I probably would have cracked a joke about someone opening a new doughnut shop in the lobby. As it was, I just shook my head and made my approach. They weren't controlling their scene very well, which was to be expected since there normally aren't too many crime scenes in Japan, even deep in Shinjuku. No one tried to stop me until I got to the front door. 

The officer's blue uniform was heartlessly neat, and as impassive as he probably wanted to be. He held out one white-gloved hand toward me. "ID please." he had an accent so thick that it came out more like 'puu-reese'. 

I smiled politely and executed a precise bow. "Of course," I pulled my card out of the little holder on my belt and handed it to him. "Han Solo, Interpol." 

He didn't bat an eyelash, not that I expected him to. Quatre and I had been on an old movie and Asahi binge when we'd made the Interpol badges for our merry little band. His read 'Luke Skywalker' and I was pretty sure we'd put 'Obi Wan Kenobi' on Wufei's since it sounded vaguely oriental, but things had gotten pretty fuzzy at that point. 

"If you will wait for a moment, Mr. Solo..." he scurried off, going rapid fire about the big guns appearing. I guess it hadn't occurred to him that I'd be able to understand Japanese. A minute later, he rematerialized with a detective who was dressed pretty much like me, except my tie was nicer. 

"I am Detective Yamazaki," he said, and bowed, "If you don't mind my questioning, what here is of Interpol's interest?" 

I was ready for that one. I pulled on my milkshake thick British accent. "I hear you've had rather an interesting murder. If my sources are correct, the MO is similar to a serial killer we've been tracking across the E. U." 

The color drained out of his face like someone had pulled the plug. "The Wraith?" 

It paid to keep up on current events in my line of work. "I shouldn't care to speculate over much." I touched my nose and gave him a conspiratorial wink. 

"But how did you get here so fast?" 

"I'm in Tokyo on other business, very hush-hush. You understand." If my smile had gotten any more ingratiating, it would have stuck and then I would have been forced to take up politics. I switched over to Japanese, keeping my speech just stiff enough that I sounded a bit uncomfortable with it. "We can speak your language if you think it would make the proceedings easier." 

I loved open-mouthed looks of shock. They were so cute, in a froggy kind of way. 

Yamazaki recovered quickly, to his credit. "Whatever is most convenient for you." 

"Excellent. Let's have a peep at the body." 

"This way, please." He lead me across a grand lobby complete with chandelier and carefully aged French carpet and through a small metal side door, back into a series of blank hallways eerily similar to the ones I walked through every morning. The carpet was much higher quality, though. 

"Were there any signs of a struggle?" 

"Not as such." We rounded a corner, coming to a stop by a door wreathed in yellow police tape. 

"Have you technicians found any fibers or prints yet?" 

"I don't believe so." 

"I see." I thought fast. "I'll leave you a secure address - I would like to see the reports when you're done, I think." 

"Of course." His Adam's apple bobbed up and down frantically. 

I watched various policemen scurry in and out of the room for a moment. One ran out and vomited in a corner. "Don't get many of these, do you." 

"No. Murders are most unusual in our country." 

"It'll make the front page, I expect. Pity. The rest of the world should attempt to follow your example." I smiled. "Let's have a look, shall we?" 

It wasn't quite what I'd expected, but I had a feeling my definition of 'blood everywhere' and Relena's differed quite drastically. There was quite a bit of blood, yes, but all of it was pooled around the body rather than sprayed across the walls like I'd been half expecting. 

They hadn't covered her yet - still taking pictures, so I got the full effect. She was laying naked in the middle of her plain dorm room, like a corpse ready for burial, hands crossed over her chest. Pretty enough, if you liked blondes - and she was a natural blonde, I could see. She had her pubic hair shaved into a weird little exclamation point. Kids these days. 

I took a leisurely circuit around the body, checking out the room first. Same as mine, really - bed, desk, dresser, all wooden. A couple j-rocker posters on the wall, a few manga scattered across the bed, a little clothing on the floor including a bright scarlet bra, and a fencing foil leaned against the wall. I opened the bathroom and peeked inside. There was a mess, there. The mirror had been shattered, and her makeup cases and hairbrush were on the floor among the glass shards. Toothbrush snapped in half. I took a closer look at the glass on the floor. There wasn't any blood in with it that I could see. 

Interesting. 

That was it for the room. Time to look at the body. I'd put it off long enough. Someone handed me a pair of latex gloves and two shoe covers - novel concept, there. 

There was an odd little black splotch on the pale skin over her sternum. It took me a moment to realize that it was a single blue-black raven feather. I reached out to pick it up, but my fingers hit a wall of snarling cold around it that left them numb and tingling. Bad idea. Whatever it was, it didn't want to be touched. I already wasn't liking this. 

I followed the rusty trails of dried blood up to her face. Her left eye was missing. My stomach rolled, and I bit the inside of my cheek, keeping my expression neutral. The empty socket was a pool of blood that had overflowed down her cheek and chin. There were no other wounds, though, not even a bruise. Clean and neat. He right eye stared at the ceiling, perfect, chilly blue. 

I bent down to look at her neck - might as well check for little tooth punctures. Negative for that, but the back of her neck had been cut open with the same clean precision. "May I?" I asked Yamazaki, hovering at my elbow. 

"By all means." 

I turned her head gently, ready to fight against rigor mortis. Or at least I intended to. Her head fell to the side with barely a touch, revealing a neat, red square of muscle and the barest hint of the trachea. White bone glittered at me on either side of the cut. 

The bit of spinal column that should have been there was missing. I pulled its - yeah, that's right, please let me forget this used to be a girl - head back up to its former position. 

This was all wrong. I knew I wasn't going to like what I found, but I looked anyway. I touched the dark place inside my head, where what makes me a necromancer lives. It was sluggish and slow to respond, but I forced it out and sent the power, violet in my mind's eye, flowing over the girl. 

She was dead. Not just dead rigor mortis, habeas corpus - I was expecting that, after all - but a dead not even I could touch. It was a cold that burned, just like when I'd tried to touch the feather, absolute zero nothingness. I almost whimpered, but I hadn't been working on control for nothing. I redirected my power before I lost it, trying to get an impression of the death, any kind of echo at all from the room. It was impossible to get anything but a sort of feeling, a magnetic tug. 

After a moment, I reached out and lifted her shoulder, just slightly. There was a tiny puncture wound there, from a hypodermic needle. 

She'd been drugged, and then...murdered, so thoroughly that I couldn't touch her. The essence a soul normally left behind was gone. 

Words formed in my mind by instinct - harvested. Reaped. I wanted to throw up. 

"I think that's about all I need to see." I stood up, making sure to keep my blood-slicked gloves away from my pants. I peeled the shoe covers off, turning them inside out, with the gloves following. To play a part, you had to have all the right mannerisms. "Detective Yamazaki, definitely get those lab results to me. I'll leave the door guard my card." 

"You think...?" 

"Let me say that I'm catching a scent." There. Give him something to worry about - why the hell should I be the only one. I walked out, scrubbing my hands idly on my jacket to get rid of the powdery feeling of the gloves. I'd have latex and blood stuck in my nose for the next week. 

Who knew, maybe I wasn't talking completely out of my ass. Maybe it was some kind of sick, ritualistic serial killer. One that knew magic. 

Fuck, what a nasty thought. Feel free to ignore that, God...I didn't want to feel that cold again. 

I knew one thing for sure. It wasn't vampires. It was some other kind of monster, something new. 


	3. Chapter 3

Anax Tristis 3 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 3_

Clocks across the city were chiming the ten o'clock hour away when I got back to the dorm. In the morning. I squinted in the bright sunlight and entertained thoughts of blowing something up - I mean, fuck, this was about when I'd be getting up if I had my way. If the universe had even an ounce of justice in it. 

I made a mental note to get some kind of message to Relena - yeah, her friend was very dead, but at least she could stop worry about vampires. I just wouldn't mention the part about it being some unknown, something worse. I'd save that little bit of anxiety all for myself, selfish bastard that I am. 

The door to my dorm room was open when I got back. It just about stopped my heart for a moment, considering the mess I'd left behind in there. I did a tactical peek around the corner - ah, it was Wufei. That was right, with Heero gone, we'd agreed to make him my new room assignment, so I wouldn't have to worry about a civilian. 

He took in my odd state - tie most of the way off, badge still clipped on - with a single glance. One sardonic eyebrow raised. "Productive morning... Han?" 

I shut the door none too gently and yanked the tie the rest of the way off. "You wouldn't begin to believe, Wu." 

He didn't respond immediately, continuing to transfer a pile of neatly folded shirts that he must have used a carpenter's square on to get the edges so precisely aligned into the dresser. When the drawer was full, he slid it shut with barely a sound. Still kneeling on the floor, he smoothed his hair back and pushed his glasses a bit higher up on his nose. "Try me." 

It took a minute to sort out exactly what it was I wanted to say. I decided to not mention much about the Heero issue, since it was a more personal thing and I doubted Wu, in all of his ambivalently asexual glory, would really want to hear the gory details. I distilled it down to Heero and I having a little disagreement - look ma, my brain filter was working for once! - and launched right into the murder and the literally gory details thereof. "...and that's all she fucking wrote." I finished. 

Wufei nodded. "What address did you give them for the lab results?" 

"The Tokyo Station safe deposit box." 

"Good choice. We'll see what they give us." 

I threw myself face first down on my bed, rolling over onto my back when the ID badge succeeded in poking my nipple nice and hard. "What makes you think this is going to be an 'us' problem?" I asked. If anyone could talk some sense into me, it would be Wufei. 

"Well, I'm forced to look at it thusly - you're certain it's not a vampire, right?" 

"Positive." 

"And not a werewolf either." 

"Not one hundred percent, but I've always seen them do more of the 'rip you to shreds' kind of things." 

"Since the vampires and the werewolves only seem immediately concerned about policing their own, this will not be their first priority. You also sound certain it was something supernatural in nature." 

I shuddered, not even bothering to hide my revulsion. "While serial killers are pretty evil, I've yet to see one totally remove someone's soul before." 

"So what alternatives are left? Not police, not vampires, not werewolves." ?" He ticked the points off on his fingers. "Unless you believe this is an isolated incident..." 

My derisive snort was the only answer he needed. 

"I didn't think so. If either of the master vampires actually do decide to involve themselves, who do you think will be the first card in their Rolodex?" 

I pulled my pillow over my face like that could somehow protect me from a very unpleasant truth. "Mother fucker." I said into the synthetic feathers. 

Wufei's only reply was the soft sound of another dresser drawer being pulled open and the rustle of fabric. I should have known better than to go looking for sympathy there. Wufei was all too aware that if it was my problem, it was his too. All for one and one for all. Yeah, that tired shit. 

I finally gave up and threw the pillow at the closet, hard enough to almost knock the flimsy door off its hinges. The tie followed in a crumpled little ball. 

"Done?" His look was most eloquent. 

"Wu, I never thought I'd be saying shit like this, but do you ever find yourself longing for the simplicity of being just a terrorist?" 

The drawer slid shut, full of boxers and undershirts. "All the time. Speaking of such..." Wufei pulled a film canister out of his pocket and tossed it onto my lap. "We received a new assignment while you were otherwise occupied, so I printed it out for you. The key is series seven." 

I wished that I hadn't thrown my pillow already, because this was the perfect reason to do so. "Want to just summarize it for me?" 

"You'll need to read it anyway." 

"I know, I know, but I just don't feel like it quite yet." 

The reproachful look was one of Wufei's best - it would have put my Jewish grandmother to shame, if I'd actually had one. "It sounds as if our personal mad scientists are worried that they may have competition - we're supposed to infiltrate one of the Oz weapons research facilities out by Kawasaki City." 

"Great. What kind of weapons? Because if it gives me oozing pustules or makes my dick fall off, I'm going to be pretty upset." 

He gave me a thin little smile. "It's all on the film, as well as the layout extrapolations. You might want to take a good look at those - you're first in." 

"Fucking hell." 

"That, too." Pairs of knotted socks, were transferred one by one into another drawer. "I've started the public records crawl. We should swing by the post office before dinner and see if there's anything to print out." 

"You're sure on the ball." 

"Try it some time." He gave me a friendly grin when I flipped him off. 

"Jerk-off." I grinned in return. When I opened the little canister, the coil of film unwound into my lap, clear except for the oil-slick sheen of data on its surface. There had to be eight meters at least. I sighed as I reached around my mattress to find the little plastic container with my laser film reader in it where I'd wedged it between bed frame and wall. This was going to take a while. 

It was getting dark by the time I finished memorizing the layout extrapolations. Yeah, we still had three days before the actual mission, but getting ready early never hurt anyone. Wufei had long since finished moving his stuff into the room, though he had needed my help to wrestle his mattress across the hall. It concealed the largest knife collection I'd seen outside of the National Museum. He was writing up a supply list for the mission when I looked up, visions of black and white floor plans with possible routes marked in red dancing in front of my eyes. 

"What do you think?" he asked. 

"Definitely not the most difficult one we've ever had to do." 

"My feelings precisely. Remember that data center in Amsterdam?" 

I groaned. "Don't even remind me. What a shit storm. I never want to see another sonic alarm as long as I live." My stomach took that moment to interject its own opinion, namely that I'd skipped lunch in favor of the mission plan. 

As if in response, Wufei's stomach growled back. 

"Hostile little buggers, aren't they? Snarling at each other like that..." 

Wufei laughed, "They're probably plotting to overthrow their abusive masters, I'd think." 

"What, you've actually managed to master the stomach - Is that some kind of kung fu thing?" 

"I was trained in many styles, you know, including Pie Chi and Fist of the Microwave Ramen Bowl." 

"Shrimp?" 

"Only beef would be tough enough to withstand the training," he said so earnestly that I almost believed him for a second. 

Almost. Then I collapsed into helpless snickering heap and rolled off the bed. "Okay, okay, you win. Let's go get some chow." 

We decided to hit our favorite udon place, a little hole in the wall cafe in the fringes of Akasaka. On the way to the subway station, we hit a post office. I stood outside and concentrated on pulling the last few dead leaves off of a short little cherry tree while Wufei dealt with the office ladies in their lemon meringue colored uniforms. They liked him - he was very polite and knew exactly when to bow. Not to say they didn't like me, just last time I'd been in there I'd tried to walk through one of their windows instead of the glass door. Even I had my graceless moments. 

We each got a bowl of mushroom udon, complete with a slice of fish cake edged by a neon pink you'd never find in nature. The shop was practically a closet with a little counter made from blonde oak - real wood. While we ate, I made small talk with an off-duty police officer while Wufei rubbed elbows with the middle-aged woman next to him, who had cobalt streaks dyed in her hair and worked at the local Condomania. She kept her eyes on her newspaper, and he kept his attention on the stack of print outs, somehow managing to slurp his noodles without splashing them. I'd never mastered that fine art. 

The udon was just enough to make me comfortably full, sleepy, and toasty warm. When we left the restaurant, I could feel that goofy 'well-fed-kid' smile creeping across my face. Wufei had the same look, though, so I didn't feel bad. We allowed the crowd to carry us along, melting seamlessly into its rhythms until we were folded into a little pocket of privacy protected by hundreds of people. 

"So was there anything interesting?" 

"Nothing detailed, but that's to be expected. It looks like the lab is a biological containment facility, though, from what the records were so carefully not saying." 

"Well, you just made my night." I hated biological weapons shit. Hated it more than anything else - but hey, watching a bunch of your friends dies from various genetically engineered plagues tends to leave an impression on a kid. "We're going to have to be really careful for insertion. I don't want to breach anything nasty." 

"Of course. The rest is standard... a few research scientists here and there, but no mention of our particular interest." 

"Schbeiker, right?" 

"Yes. Formerly a husband and wife team from Germany, wife divorced him last year over crediting on academic papers." 

"Ouch." 

"Oz brought him in on special retainer, it should be noted. There aren't very many Germans living in Japan." 

"What is it with Germany? I swear, they've produced more than their fair share of evil scientists." 

Wufei snorted. "One could definitely surmise that. Maybe it's the food." 

"Or the beer. Suddenly tinkering with genetics or trying to bring the dead to life sounds like a good idea when you've had seven or eight brews." 

Wu only shook his head and tried to drag us back onto the subject at hand. "Ah...and do you remember the mess up near Narita last year?" 

"Oh yeah...the biological shipping container getting breached, right? Army guys running around in bunny suits and all that." 

"That was the first incarnation of the lab. It used to be located next to the airport until new regulations were passed - the local government felt that it was too dangerous to have two such differently volatile environments coinciding." 

"No shit. Just imagine what would happen if some pilot lost it -- " I never got to finish my sentence. The tone of the crowd suddenly shifted to one of alarm, and the sound of stumbling, frantic footsteps and pained breathing came bearing down on us. Before I even had a chance to turn around for a look, our tenuous little space in the crowd popped like a soap bubble as someone roughly two feet taller and twice as wide as me shoved in between Wufei and I. Wufei managed to keep his balance, but I wasn't so lucky, falling into a planter that contained skeletal bushes. Sharp sticks poked into my clothes and grabbed at skin and hair as I struggled to extricate myself, cursing all the while. "Watch where you're fucking going!" 

Something was seriously wrong. The murmur of the crowd died altogether, replaced by a low note of fear. There were several muffled screams, gasps, people asking what was wrong. Then someone shouted for an ambulance. 

Cursing fit to turn the air blue, I yanked myself out of the bush, leaving some hair and skin behind. I shoved my way through the crowd, ducking arms or elbowing at teenagers with punk haircuts. It was like fighting the tide, running through a sudden hurricane of claustrophobia, until I tore my way into the eye. 

I stumbled forward, suddenly free of the pressure, and a strong hand grabbed my arm and yanked me back. I was pretty sure it was Wufei, but I didn't look. There were more important things to see. 

The man was bigger than I'd initially thought, but now he was stretched across the sidewalk, scrabbling at it with broken, dirty fingernails. He was wearing jeans and a maroon t-shirt, but they were stained and torn. His skin was so pale it looked yellowish, and covered with sweat, as was his matted hair. Still clawing at the sidewalk, he threw his head back in a pantomime of agony and then let out the most blood-curdling scream I'd ever heard in my life, spraying pink flecked foam from his mouth. 

That was enough for the mundanes. Almost as a mass, they backed away, covering their eyes. A few brave souls were trying to use their cell phones, probably to call an ambulance. I almost fancied I could hear sirens in the distance. 

Wufei stepped forward, a soothing murmur of Chinese tumbling from his lips. I don't know what he was saying, and later, he said he didn't know, himself - he was just trying to calm someone so obviously in pain. For just a moment, the man stilled, breathing liked he'd just run a marathon. Wu knelt next to him, and reached out to touch him -- 

With another scream of inhuman pain and rage, he flung Wufei away, sending him flying into the crowd. He curled into a fetal ball, the muscles in his arms jumping around his veins, faster and faster. The sound of snapping bones echoed down the street and he screamed, arching out as his skin began to flow like water and rearrange itself... 

I was shoved aside again, for the second time in as many minutes. Men in white containment suits, at least class three, filled the circle the crowd had made, hiding the man from view. He screamed and screamed behind the human barrier, and then suddenly he was strapped to a metal stretcher with a twelve lead monitor on and syringe sticking out of his left pectoral muscle as his skin continued to melt away, stretching his face out. 

For one perfect moment of clarity, we locked gazes, and he flung one pain clawed hand in my direction as if in supplication. One of his eyes was beautiful, Japanese brown, and the other was bright green, its pupil a vertical slit. 

Then he was gone, as were the white suits, into the back of an unmarked blue van that cut out into traffic like a knife. 

I stood frozen for a long moment, simply listening to the receding hysteria of the crowd as they assured themselves that didn't just happen and it was all okay, and oh, wasn't there a train to catch? The udon hung in my gut like a mass of worms. Finally, I turned to find Wufei still sitting on the ground, his eyes wide and shocked. I offered him my hand up, and I guess it kind of said how stunned he was that he actually accepted the offer of help. 

It was sensory overload. It was too much to take in all at once. He and I stood, looking into the sky and trying to collect the scattered pieces of the evening enough to form a coherent thought, and get started on the normal banter that would allow us to regain our comforting distance. Overhead, the fat, full moon stared down on us. 


	4. Chapter 4

Anax Tristis 4 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 4_

The walk back to school was silent except for the scuffing of shoes or rustling of clothing. We might as well have been alone, as contemplative as we were getting - yeah, sure, we could've talked about it, but what good would that have done? Neither of us had a clue what the fuck that could have been. 

Besides, the sound of screaming coupled with the meaty crunch of snapping bones was drowning out any thoughts I could have hoped for. 

Finally, right before we hopped the fence into the grounds, I spoke. "He had two different eyes, Wu." 

"While uncommon, it's not really abnormal for people to have eyes of different colors," he said, voice tight. 

"No man," I said, "I mean he had two different eyes. One was brown and normal. The other one was green and had a slit pupil. Like a cat." 

He paused, hands locked on the chain link. "I see." 

"Good, 'cause I sure as fuck don't." I jumped off the other side of the fence with more force than was strictly necessary, almost shaking him off. 

Wufei waited patiently for the metallic clinking of the fence to stop before he began his climb. "Shape shifters," he said, "they have the eyes of their inner beast." 

I dredged up memories of Tony the tiger and Une. Bright blue cat slits. Hungry wolf amber. "But they have matched sets." 

"Yes. So something else is going on here." 

"No shit, Sherlock." 

His back went stiff as he began to climb down. "You asked, Duo." 

That was me. Duo T. Schmuck. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, man. I shouldn't take out my frustration on you." 

"Just another one of those nights," was all he said in answer. 

"Same shit, different night." I agreed as we rounded the hedge that surrounded the dorm. 

There was the barest hint of a rustle, and that was all the warning we had. A blur burst from the hedges right in front of us. No one was really prepared. Wufei and I reacted like the well-oiled machines we were. As one, we kicked it away and jumped back, drawing weapons. 

The shape let out a shocked "Oof!" and fell over with a gratifying thud. I sighted down the barrel of my Browning, only about a pound or two off in pressure from opening up...and found myself confronted with a pair of way too familiar bright blue cat eyes. Human or tiger, I would recognize them anywhere; what can I say, you speak of the devil and he jumps out of the bushes at you, I guess. 

"Tony?" I asked, my voice cracking with disbelief. 

"Yeah," he said. Who would've thought that someone who spent half their time as a giant cat could sound so sheepish? "Sorry about that. Gonna stand, okay?" 

I made a big show of letting off on the trigger and returning the gun to its holster. Behind me, I heard the metal whisper of a well-honed knife being returned to its sheathe. Tony stood gracefully, almost like he had no bones, then set about straightening his clothes and brushing away imaginary flecks of dirt from his tight black shirt and pants. I could almost imagine his tail flipping with annoyance at being caught at a graceless moment. 

"So...it's been a while," I remarked. Tony was my favorite shape shifter, but that wasn't saying a whole lot. He'd saved my ass before, and I'd returned the favor and saved his. And wherever Tony was, Johannes, one of the causes of the rather shitty direction our lives had gone lately, was not far behind. 

"Didn't figure you'd be wanting me over for tea and crumpets any time soon, you know?" Tony said. Was that a hint of irony I detected? 

"So I'm guessing this is business." 

"You could say that. The Boss asked me to bring you over." 

I should have known; if Tony had just been dropping by to say hi, I would've been okay with that. But if it meant the vampires sticking their cold little noses into my business again, fuck it. I made a big show of looking at my watch, "Gee, that's a swell offer, but I'll have to pass. It's awful late and I'm a busy boy tomorrow. Thanks, but no." I turned to go. 

"No, wait, please." Tony said in a rush. 

I glanced back at him. This was the first time I'd ever seen a crack in his "me tough Italian bodyguard" act, and it kind of worried me. "What is it, Tony?" 

"Please," he said, "you don't hear me say it ever, but please. I know you hate the Boss, and I don't blame you. I get it. But this isn't about him. And it ain't about the Master of Tokyo neither." 

Curious, I faced him again, crossing my arms over my chest. "Then what is it about?" I asked. 

Tony's shoulders drooped as much as they could without tearing the close fitting blue blazer he was wearing. "My brother," he said, his voice soft. 

"Angelo?" Despite my own best intentions, I was alarmed. Angelo was another one that had saved my ass once. I hated his shitty attitude, he wasn't nearly as personable as his brother, and he was another of Johannes' little shape shifter lackeys to boot, but I owed the man. I owed them both. Even if the trouble at that time had been the fault of their master. Shinigami pays his debts. "What happened to Angelo?" 

The words came out in a great shuddering sigh, a thick Italian accent coming out of nowhere to color them red. "He's dead." 

My spine froze, for more reasons than I could count. "We'll go with you." I said. 

Tony walked us down the familiar paths of the theatre district. I was too distracted to really care about gawking over the colorful crowd. Heero could have been dancing around wearing nothing but a set of 24 karat gold nipple rings and I probably wouldn't have noticed. Or maybe I would have, just so I could grab him and kick the shit out of him. 

Ever notice how shit only comes down in blizzards? All I ever had time to do these days was repress, repress, repress, and hope I lived long enough to talk to a psychiatrist about it later. I never did believe in a healthy life style, either physical or mental. 

I almost ran into Tony's back when he stopped, that's how distracted I was. We'd stopped in front of a neon-laced concrete building that pulsed red, blue, and bright green in time with visceral music that was thumping out from speakers hidden behind sensually flowing modern sculptures like blobs of mercury. 

"This is it." Tony said. "One of the Boss's clubs." 

I squinted up at the confusing tangle of neon tubing, but gave up on trying to read the rapidly changing kanji. It was starting to give me a headache. Tony didn't feel the need to name it; he just nodded to the no-neck bouncer in front of the black glass smooth doors, then flung them open. 

It was like being plunged into an ocean comprised of nothing but swirling eddies of base beat and violent waves of white light. My eyes watered and blinked rapidly, trying to make out anything: writhing bodies, a stage, and the tallest, best looking woman I'd ever seen in my life shaking her ass in a way that distracted about half my blood supply. Wufei grabbed my wrist in an iron grip and dragged me along as I watched, unable to tear my eyes away. 

Warm energy flowed from the woman in waves - holy shit, she was a shape shifter. Hallelujah for pheromones. Her outfit flashed and shimmered in the pulsing lights, cocoa brown arms and oh-my-god legs weaving sinuous patterns as she drew her skirt up higher and higher, until all was bare to the world. 

Oh my. 

Wufei dragged me into a room, and then a plain grey door slammed shut almost in my face, cutting off the noise and light like it had never existed. Blinking dumbly, I turned to face the calm neutrality of the grey room. Tony now stood next to Johannes, who was dressed in a deep red poet's shirt and tight black pants that left nothing to the imagination, his bright yellow hair flaring even in the subdued lighting. 

"Drag queens, huh?" I asked. 

He didn't answer me. With the eerie stillness the old ones all seemed to have, he stepped to the side and opened the door he'd been in front of. The choking scent of aging blood and the beginning of decay rolled over us in a wave, making me swallow convulsively. 

"How long?" I asked. 

Johannes felt so tightly wound to me that I was surprised he didn't break in half. "Nearly a week." 

"Why -" 

He cut me off with a chop of his hand. "Look now. We will talk later, away from this place." 

Wufei and I stepped forward as one, into the doorway that now seemed to yawn like a mouth of Hell. 

The room was coated with blood. It soaked the carpet, turning it black and stiff, and covered the walls in dense, cracked patches that leaked toward the carpet. There were even splashes on the ceiling, clogging the acoustic tiles. Taking a deep breath that was a mistake, I stepped toward the body. The carpet crunched under my feet and a metallic taste leaped into the back of my throat. Cold permeated the room, that particular psychic chill that only I could feel - the hand of the absolute, unending void. I was going to throw up, I could feel it. 

All that saved me was Wufei's dispassionate remark, "Signs of a struggle." 

I almost laughed, that was how ridiculous it was. Instead, I looked down at my feet. There was broken glass all around me, hidden in the dried blood. "You could say that." 

There had once been mirrors in the room. A lot of mirrors; whole walls of them in fact. It took a moment for the twisted and broken shapes to make sense in my mind. This had once been a practice room for the...dancers. The twisted shapes were splintered wood and impossible bent metal that had once been poles and bars. Angelo's body was propped up against the wall, his lips pulled back in the rictus of a snarl, exposing his sharpened canines. His hands were twisted into claws and covered with blood, his clothing torn to shreds. One eye looked toward the ceiling, glaring even through the mist of death. The other eye was gone; only a crusted socket was left. 

"Angelo fought the good fight. It's more than Dorothy managed," I said. 

"This is too similar to be a coincidence." Wufei said, his voice grim like death. "I can't imagine the removal of an eye is a normal occurrence." 

The snap of latex made me look at Wufei. He'd just finished pulling a pair of gloves on; at least one of us had them. I hadn't yet replaced the pair I kept stashed. I nodded, "Let's follow the similarity, then. Check his neck, and look for puncture wounds." 

We had to peel poor Angelo's head from the wall, in the end. It was amazing what an effective glue dried blood could make. I almost winced at the amount of hair we ended up ripping out of his head - not that he could care any more. At least that was what I kept telling myself. The back of his neck was still there, but when I bent closer, I could see the precise lines of cuts, and a lose flap of skin where an unknown hand had begun to peel away. 

"Someone interrupted it," I said. 

Wufei nodded. "Look on his shoulder." There, just peeping out of his skin, was a silver line. Carefully, Wu drew it out; a long, thin needle had been snapped off in his muscle. 

"So whoever it was tried to drug him, like they did with Dorothy. It didn't work fast enough, or maybe not at all. They had to subdue him." The enormity of what I had just said made me shiver. "Who the fuck can subdue a were-tiger, Wu?" 

He shook his head. "I don't know." 

"This is making less sense the more I see. There's no kind of connection between Dorothy and Angelo. There couldn't have been. She was just a schoolgirl," I said, "or at least she sure looked like one. She wasn't a shape shifter, couldn't have been a vampire..." 

"Maybe she was something else that we haven't met yet." 

"I guess that's as good of an explanation as any. I don't know if we'll ever be able to find out." A faint blue shimmer in the black coating Angelo's pants caught my eye, and I reached for it. My hand encountered the now-familiar barrier of absolute cold that left me gasping. I should have known it was coming - everything else had been too similar. "Wu, see down on his leg? Can you try to pick it up for me? I can't touch it." 

I don't know why he didn't tell me to fuck off - I sure would have, at that point. Instead, he reached down for it. As his fingertips brushed the blood soaked feather, it burst into sickly green flame that cast such a putrid smell, we both stumbled back a step. In an instant, it was nothing but ash. 

I stared for a moment, trying to convince my brain that yes, that had actually happened. "Wow. I guess it liked you even less than it liked me." That got me a dirty look. "What did it feel like?" I asked. 

"Nothing," he said, "it didn't feel like anything." 

I nodded, not really understanding. I just wanted out of the room, which smelled worse now if it was possible. I'd been putting it off long enough - as my last bit of investigating, I looked into Angelo with my power. Empty, like the void of space. Nothing to talk to or remember. I was shivering badly when I became aware of my own body again. Wufei had moved away and was carefully examining the glass shards on the floor. 

"Well, whatever Angelo could have told us died in truth with him," I said. "I can't touch him now." 

Wufei nodded. "Not surprising, considering the other similarities. It is an evil, terrible thing." He bent to pick a shard of glass out of the carpet. "This bothers me." 

I snorted. "A particular part, or the whole enchilada? I'd be pretty worried if you weren't bothered." 

"The glass. The way it's broken is wrong." Wufei said, dropping the shard in disgust and brushing imaginary dirt from his still gloved hands. The latex squeaked in a way that set my teeth on edge. "The mirrors should have been broken during the struggle, but the evidence points away from that. The glass is all under the blood, instead of some being on top of it." 

"So it was broken before anyone started bleeding." 

He nodded. "Also, the pattern on the floor is wrong. The shards should be at the base of the mirrors. These are sprayed out across the floor, like a window would be when broken from within." 

"We'll check with Johannes. Maybe the walls aren't solid." 

He nodded, pulling his gloves off neatly inside out and dropping them on the floor. "Any explanation would make me happy at this point. There are too many unlikely factors for my comfort." 

"You just about done?" 

Wufei glanced around. "I think so. There isn't a great deal that we can do; we're not professional investigators." 

"And somehow, I get the feeling that we're the best that Angelo's ever going to get. I feel sorry for the guy." 

"Insult to injury, I suppose." 

I coughed. "Yep. Hey, let's get out of here. I'm going to be smelling this for a week." I felt bad the minute the words passed my lips. 

Johannes and Tony were waiting for us when we came out of the room. They whisked us through a series of back hallways without so much as a word. Soon, we were installed in a small office, sipping cups of lemon tea that the master vampire had poured for us from a pewter service. It said a lot about our mental state that we'd accepted the offering with nary a protest. 

I was starting on my second cup of tea when I finally felt fortified enough to talk. "Okay, Johannes, now will you answer my questions?" 

He frowned, a strange glitter in his eyes. "To the best of my ability." 

"Why?" I asked. "There are so many damn whys here. Why did you leave him there so long? Why did you want us to look at him? Why haven't you brought real investigators in?" 

Johannes breathed out a soft sigh, leaning back in his chair and setting his own blue china cup on the desk with the softest of clinks. "One at a time, Mr. Maxwell. One at a time. In answer, I have had investigators after a fashion in. They have been of...our ilk. They found no fingerprints or bits of hair; nothing beyond what one can discern with the eyes alone, I'm afraid to say. The body has been there for such a long time because the...murder," he said the word with the greatest distaste, "occurred in the middle of the week. No one found him until a few days ago. As for why you have been brought in to this particular incident," he looked blandly at Tony, who shrank in his seat like a little boy expecting his teacher to smack him with a ruler, "Angelo's brother insisted. You have apparently made quite an impression on him, Mr. Maxwell. He was certain that you could shed light on this subject even when my own resources failed. And now that you have seen, the body can at last be given a proper burial, I think." 

"Wow. No pressure here, huh?" I said. "Right now, about the best I can do for you is say that it's fucked up. Something placed Angelo's spirit beyond my reach, and that right now smacks of some serious next-level shit." 

Johannes' eyebrows rose marginally. "Please continue," he said. 

"This morning, I also saw a body. One of those days I guess. The MO was the same. Oh yeah, and we were wondering...any of the walls in that room false?" 

"Not that I know of." 

"Okay, then we have another pointer to something hinkey. I don't know what else to say. This isn't my area of expertise." 

Johannes leaned forward, his body posture deceptively relaxed. I could feel his mind, coiled like a predator about to spring. "Do you intend to pursue this matter?" 

I raked a distracted hand through my bangs. "Do I have a choice?" 

"There is always a choice, Mr. Maxwell." 

"Not in this case. So far, this thing has killed a friend of a friend, and a decent acquaintance. I'd hate to think that it's going to start hitting closer to home than that." 

"In that case," Johannes said, "every resource that is mine is at your disposal." 

It took me a long moment of staring at him to realize what he was saying. And then it smacked me between the eyes. "What, no qualifications?" 

"Without exception, without reservation. I want what did this found, and I want to have a personal hand in its demise." With each word, Johannes rose a bit more from his chair until he was standing. His eyes seemed to spit sharp blue fire that burned with cold. My chair scraped across the floor as I backed away. Wufei was already on his feet. "Angelo was mine. Mine to raise, use, protect, punish, praise, and should I have deemed it fitting, kill. NO ONE will touch what is mine." He spun on his heel and stalked to a corner of the room, where he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then stood with the absolute stillness of death. "I apologize, Mr. Maxwell, for my lapse in control. This has been a rather trying time for us all." 

"It's okay. I know what it's like to lose someone that you..." I hesitated, the word 'care' dying on my lips, "are responsible for," I ended diplomatically. 

Johannes nodded and looked at us both, the death of ages in his eyes. "We discovered the body the evening after we'd been raided by one of Treize's wolf packs. They have moved deeply into my territory. I do not believe in coincidence, Mr. Maxwell." 

Cold, grim anger settled into my gut. I wasn't sure if it was mine, or Johannes'. I wasn't sure it even mattered. "Neither do I," I said. 


	5. Chapter 5

Anax Tristis 5 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 5_

We took the train to Ginza and walked from there to the Oz base, again in silence. Wufei knew better than to try striking up a conversation with me when I was seeing red; he probably wasn't too happy himself anyway. 

The fire damage that Harris and his little pyrokinetic monkey boy had done to the base's front gate was long since repaired. To our dismay, the repairs had been upgrades as well. There was a full guard station there, lots of cameras. Probably some hidden microphones as well, maybe a death ray or two. The usual. 

"What's your plan?" Wufei asked. 

I grimaced, "Well, we can't exactly walk up to the front door and ring the bell." 

"That would be ill advised to say the least." 

"And I'm not going to wait for him to send us an invitation. So I guess we might as well try the back door instead." 

"I don't think -" Wufei began. 

I wasn't listening to him - damn my temper anyway. I popped right up from behind the bushes we'd been using as cover and walked toward the back gate, as bold as day. Wufei didn't have much of a choice but to follow me, a few steps behind. As I approached the gate, one of the guards stuck his head out the window, obviously annoyed by a kid intruding, and yelled something about trespassing and vandalism. I ignored him, pausing just long enough to make sure the security camera got an eye full. Then I drew my gun and fired, smooth and dead on. The camera exploded into shards of plastic and metal. 

Two seconds later, we were surrounded by a ring of highly agitated guards, each of them holding an automatic rifle. You had to hand it to Oz; they had trained their people well. 

"Drop the gun or we will fire. DROP THE GUN!" One guy shouted, possibly the same one that had been yelling at me before. 

I ignored him again. It was probably starting to piss him off, but he could deal with it as far as I was concerned. "Treize!" I yelled, "I know you're listening in, you son of a bitch! We're here for a chat, and the difficulty level is up to you." 

The soldiers looked confused; even the yelling guy paused for a minute. Wufei shot me a look that promised he'd be practicing joint locks on me later. As far as I was concerned, he could hurt me all he liked as long as we made it through this alive. The rational part of my brain had finally caught up with the rest of me, and was calling me names that would have made a monkey blush. 

Yet somehow, it worked. The gate opened on silent hinges. At the same time, a simple message crackled out of the radios that each soldier wore: "Hold your fire." It wasn't a voice I recognized. 

Far across the sea of concrete that stood between the main base and us, a door opened and someone emerge, though it was impossible to make out who it was or even if it was male or female. We stood in uncomfortable silence as the person walked toward us, obviously in no sort of hurry. The entire time, the soldiers kept their guns up and steady, ready to shoot. 

I recognized the person long before he reached us; Ivan, my favorite vampire in the world. That wasn't saying much. 

He barely looked at Wufei and me, instead turning his attention to the soldiers. "Excellent work, gentlemen. I will take responsibility from here on out." The soldiers saluted him in crisp unison, and returned to their posts. Only then did Ivan turn his attention to us. The look in his eyes was frosty to say the least. "Follow me, please," he said, beginning to walk back toward the base. 

I shrugged and did as asked, holstering my gun. 

"That was extremely ill-advised," Ivan remarked. 

"But it worked." 

"Through sheer good fortune. I hope I do not see the day that your luck runs out; it would be most unpleasant." 

I laughed, but there wasn't a lot of humor to be found in it. "I'm with you on that." 

We didn't end up in Treize's grand throne room like I'd expected. We didn't even wait in the regency drawing room with its overly comfortable couches. Instead, Ivan dropped us off in a conference room that would have been quite at home debriefing twitchy field operatives that had been on their own for five years and started talking to themselves. Dim and monochrome. So dispassionately postmodern that I was surprised the floors were black carpet instead of bare concrete. Ivan watched us like an unblinking reptile until we each selected a metal chair to perch uneasily upon, then said only, "Wait here." 

Before I had a chance to get sarcastic or even mildly snippy, he was gone in a blur of navy blue wool. The plate glass doors shut with the tiniest of sighs in his wake, and we were blanketed in silence. 

"Something's wrong," I said, trying to swivel my chair. No dice. 

"Oh, really. What brought you to that startling bit of mental clarity?" Wufei returned. Sarcastic little bugger. "You could have tried to make our entrance a bit more graceful, I think." 

"They've been alive for hundreds of years. They can have a fucking sense of humor." 

Wufei gave me a piercing look. "That wasn't a joke." 

"And maybe they'll figure that out, too. Take the hint that I'm not playing tonight." 

"We never do." 

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Maybe you don't. I personally believe that life is a big shoot-em-up arcade game that was invented for my benefit." 

"That explains so much." 

The door only made the barest whisper of air as it opened. Wufei and I both jumped, though we managed to refrain from drawing weapons. Despite the fact that we'd been facing the door as we talked, just so that we _couldn't_ be surprised, we hadn't spotted anyone approaching. 

Yet there she stood, all crisp blue wool and perfect black hair. A shock of recognition made the hair on my arms stand on end. I'd seen her once and only once before, a brief, panicked glimpse of her shouting at us to run as an unearthly wind howled in to being and Treize rended another vampire limb from limb with nothing but the sheer power of his will. Not exactly an auspicious memory, that. 

She stopped just inside the doorway, standing at attention. Her dark eyes were the liveliest part of her, not the usual dead fish mirrors you get on blood suckers; she looked right through you with every glance. And vampire she was, not so old or powerful, but there was something strange in her energy as it danced across my skin. Hot and cold at once, dead and familiar, yet laced with something terribly, primally _alive_. 

"I will be forthright with you, Mr. Maxwell," she said without preamble, "I am not myself a player of games. The Master of Tokyo is unable to give audience because he is simply not here. I rule as his second in his absence. Address your concerns to me." 

"Where is he?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. 

She smiled tightly, her fangs hidden. "He is in Europe, addressing the Council in regards to the unacceptable nature of their attempts to intervene in his city... and country." 

I didn't rise to the bait on that one. The more I found out about vampire politics, the less I actually gave a rat's ass. "How long has he been gone?" 

"Eight days on various aspects of business. He should return shortly." 

Which if you trusted the word of a leech - not that I would - it'd put him out of the country when Angelo went to the big litter box in the sky. Not that being physically absent would really prevent him from doing what he wanted; he was a more hands-off sort of manager anyway. "I think I can just as effectively deliver my message to you." I said. 

"Please do so." 

I steepled my fingers and gave her the steeliest look I could muster, backed by all the rage I was holding in check. It was impressive enough to get an eyebrow raise out of her. Score one for the team. "A were-tiger acquaintance of mine, Angelo, got rather brutally whacked and mutilated. I know it had to be you guys, considering your stupid shit turf war. So I want to know how and why, and a good reason why I shouldn't be actively hunting your asses down and dragging you out for a look at the morning sky." 

It didn't get even a little rise out of her, which was disappointing. I preferred a responsive audience. "What of your legendary neutrality, Mr. Maxwell?" 

I frowned. "The rules change when it gets personal. And that's all this is. I'm not so much helping him as I am trying to kill you." 

"Then we understand each other perfectly." She bared her teeth in a smile that was a direct challenge. "I am Lucrezia Noin, the Master of Beasts, and I love all the children of the Moon far too much to disrespect the laws of the Hunt and summarily 'whack' one." 

And the hell of it was, I couldn't help but believe her with all my heart. There was nothing hidden about her, nothing at all. The feeling made me shiver, as did the realization that the color was bleeding from her eyes as her gaze focused on my neck. 

"Now I have a question for you... Duo." 

I was drowning, half hypnotized. Wufei surreptitiously poked me in the arm, bringing me back to reality. "Shoot." 

"How deep do you want to go?" 

"I'd like to still see the morning, if it's all the same to you." 

"It's always twilight in my world." She turned and opened the door. "Come with me, I have something to show you." 

Wufei shrugged at me. I shrugged back. This evening was deviating from its script, and we were off the map and into 'Here there be dragons' territory. So we followed her, through dark corridors with only dim overhead lights to guide us. She glanced back a couple of times, and her eyes would catch the light like those of a cat. Deep in the maze, she opened an unmarked door and let us through. 

The room smelled of blood and sickness. At least this time it was fresh and salty; I could handle that a lot better than rot. The sour smell of vomit clawed at the back of my throat. I knew this all way too well. Wufei sniffed at the air, his face paling. 

A woman moaned, thready with pain, and then followed with a whine like a wounded animal. Noin pointed toward a corner of the dim room. 

At first I thought it was a crumpled blanket and nothing more, but then another moan emanated from it. An arm suddenly shot from the folds, fingers clawing with pain, followed by a bare shoulder, then a face. 

I almost didn't recognize her; her skin was pallid and slick with sour sweat. Blood crusted her nostrils and eyelashes, and her face was etched with haggard lines of pain. Une. But not the proud woman I would have recognized, normally brimming with wild, sensual life like only the strongest lycanthropes did. 

"What happened to her?" I asked. 

Noin knelt by her, gently touching her face and making soothing sounds deep in her throat. Une sniffed, then lapped at her fingers, whimpering again. "The same thing that happened to most of her pack, except that she has survived." Noin said, her voice dropping to a growl. 

I would have let out an exasperated sigh, but I didn't know how she'd take it. Instead, I let the tension continue to gnaw at my gut. "Can you give me more details?" 

"They had left with the intention of raiding the territory of Johannes. Yes, our 'stupid shit turf war' as you put it." She smiled tightly. "They never completed the raid. The pack was attacked, with these." Something dropped from her fingers and hit the floor with a rather musical 'ting!' I retrieved it without comment. "They saw nothing, smelled nothing." 

A metal dart, like the ones normally in animal tranquilizer kits. Somehow, I wasn't surprised. "I have a weird question for you." 

"Yes?" 

I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and rolled the dart up in it. "Were there any mirrors around? Broken ones?" 

Noin's eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline. "They were in an alleyway that contained a few shops, one of which apparently had mirrored windows. Those windows were shattered. How did you know?" 

"Call it a hunch. Are you missing anyone, or are they all accounted for?" 

She hesitated, then spoke. "All accounted for in Une's pack." 

I wanted to call her a liar. I wanted to demand to know what she was holding back with that simple statement. I looked her in the eye, and couldn't do it. There was pain there, and it was way too real and alive for my comfort. 

"Do you think she's going to make it?" I jerked my chin toward Une. 

"If any will, it'll be her. She is Master Treize's chosen companion. They share a... bond." 

I nodded. "Can I count on your support?" 

"Anything I can give is yours." 

Somehow, I knew that the offer wouldn't be nearly that open-ended from Treize. Lucky me, then. "Good, we'll be in touch," I said. Wufei shot me a look that needed no interpretation. I'd better be cooking up a good explanation. 

Ivan was waiting outside the door and escorted us out. He didn't say a word to me, even when I tried to joke around. Apparently, my entrance had offended his tender sensibilities. Wufei didn't say anything either. Hey, it was time for yet another season of 'Duo Maxwell on how to make friends and influence people.' 

As we walked across the broad concrete tarmac toward the entrance, I made a big show of looking around, which probably annoyed Ivan further. He could kiss my ass any time; vampires had no business caring about the current war of attrition we were having out with the fuckers in Oz anyway. 

There were mobile suits parked everywhere, mostly Leos. If they had pilots already mobilized for all of them, it made up a pretty decent strike force. I only wished I knew if they were acting as a way station or if these were going to the colonies, it would be a major deal indeed. 

A flash of red caught my eye, and I sauntered as nonchalantly in that direction as I could, trying to get a better look. 

It was the Tallgeese, the mobile suit belonging to hot shot, 'I'm too sexy for my uniform'' pilot Zechs Marquise. What a shame I hadn't brought a nice explosive cocktail to feed to the damn thing. Ever since we'd watched it arrive months ago, doing the mechanical goose step down Chuo Street like a fucking Mardi Gras float, it had been nothing but trouble on every combat mission we'd run. Zechs was a thorn in our side, a pain in our ass, the fucking anti-Christ of Oz. Only a month previously, he'd caused some serious damage to Sandrock, which I was pretty certain had cemented the Doc's decision to break us up. The five of us together made one hell of a strike force and one hell of a target. No need to put all the eggs in one basket when you're fighting a guerilla military action. I knew it, but that didn't mean I had to like it. 

"Mr. Maxwell! That is enough!" Ivan said, standing between me and the mobile suit. 

"Sorry, man, you can't blame a guy for looking." I shoved my hands into my pockets and did my best to look contrite. 

Ivan apparently could. Well, fuck him. His side had technically won anyway, so he could once again kiss my skinny white-boy ass. 

As I allowed myself to be herded back toward Wufei, I realized something strange. The colors of the Tallgeese, normally brilliant white and crimson, had looked kind of dull, dingy, and sad. I reviewed my memories of the brief look. 

That was it. The Tallgeese had been dirty, well and truly covered with a nice layer of grime. Suits didn't get like that unless they'd been sitting outside, uncovered for at least a week if not more. We put camo nets over our Gundams to keep them hidden, but it had the side benefit of always keeping them clean. 

Now wasn't that interesting. No idea what it meant, but it was a thought to chew over later. 

Wufei and I were back at the train station before he even spoke, and his words were terse. "When did we become private investigators?" 

"I'm not asking you to do it, this was my decision. I knew it was coming the minute I agreed to see Relena's dead friend." 

"You know it doesn't work that way." 

I fed a couple bills to the ticketing machine and punched the buttons a little harder than necessary. "Yeah, I know. It shouldn't be that way, but I know." 

"Then why?" 

I sighed. The little dart, wrapped up in my pocket, seemed to radiate malevolent cold. "Because I'm scared. Because I've seen people look like that before, and I _will not_ let it happen again, even if it's people that have had the bad taste to become monsters. I just can't do it." My voice was shaking. Since when had I lost that much control? 

Realization dawned on Wufei's face, and he nodded, finally getting it. He didn't need to say the word; it hung there in the air between us, so clearly it might have well been written: **Plague**. 


	6. Chapter 6

Anax Tristis 6 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 6_

It was almost dawn by the time we got home, but I wasn't in the least bit tired. I'd scared myself so many times during the night that it was going to take a long time for the adrenaline to drain out of my blood. Wufei didn't look like he was ready to sleep either - he only stopped moving long enough to pop a couple of aspirin and drink three glasses of water. All I could say was that he must have had a pretty awesome headache going. 

Probably if I'd asked, he would have said he'd named it after me. Everyone's a fucking comedian, after all. 

"We've still got today and tomorrow before the mission," I said, rubbing at my hair with a towel. I'd decided to take a shower, under the theory that it would let me scrub the smells of blood and sickness out of my skin. It hadn't helped. I could still smell Angelo's death scene every time I inhaled, and I'd already asked Wufei if my hands still smelled like latex. He'd looked at me like I'd just grown a second, evil head. 

Wufei finished folding a shirt before he replied, "That's correct." Apparently, he'd decided to deal with his headache and nervous energy by reorganizing all of his clothes. To each his own, I guess. 

"So I was thinking while I was shampooing, and this is what I came up with. We've talked to Johannes. We've talked to Noin. So we got both sides there, and that pretty much covers the vampire and werewolf angle on this one. So, who else do we know that might have a clue about what's going on, huh?" 

Wufei set the shirt in the top dresser drawer. "The witches." He didn't bother to hide the disgust in his voice. 

We hadn't had too many dealings with the witches, beyond the unfortunate encounter with one that had happened to be the servant of a vampire and plotting our collective untimely demise. But what little we'd seen sure hadn't impressed Wufei, or at least not in a good way. Bitchy women working in porn shops apparently just didn't do it for him. 

"Yeah, I know you're not crazy about them. I'm sure as hell not either, considering their track record when it comes to trying to cause my death. But it's as good of a stab to take in the dark as any. I sure don't have any better ideas." 

"Admittedly, I don't either," Wufei said. "And let's not tempt fate with too many 'stab' references." 

"So it has to be the witches, and that means we go to Carmelita's. Sure, the scary old lady that we ran in to before might still be working at the department store, but she didn't seem too happy to see me. I'm not interested in talking with people that are trying to punish me for God-knows-what. Besides, Hara seemed to like us. She helped the paramedics find us, after all." 

"I don't trust her motivations." 

"Well, duh," I said. "I don't trust her either. We don't trust anyone. All in all, we're mistrustful little bastards. It's good for keeping us alive." I dropped the sodden towel on the floor and began the hunt for my hairbrush. 

Wufei looked at it like it was some kind of dead rodent. "You're going to pick that up, right?" 

"Of course I am, as soon as I'm done sorting this mess pretending to be my hair out." The hairbrush was hiding in a desk drawer. I had no idea how it got there. 

"Good." 

"You know, Wufei, you and me need to work on this roommate thing." I started brushing at the ends of my hair. Thank God for conditioner was all I could say. 

"I'm used to living alone." 

I laughed. "Yeah, it shows. You twitch every time I put my feet up on the furniture or miss the trash can when I'm tossing papers. It's kind of endearing, actually." 

Wufei dropped the rest of his clothes back into the dresser, apparently giving up on getting stuff sorted out. "Obstreperous brat," he muttered. 

"Curmudgeonly old fart." 

"I'm six weeks younger than you," he informed me. "That would make you the old fart." 

"Unless I've been lying about my birthday." 

"Dishonorable American cur." 

"You know you can't resist my roguish good looks and charm. Give us a kiss." I puckered my lips and made several exaggerated smacking sounds. 

"I'd rather kiss Relena." 

"Ooooooh...someone's getting nasty. You're just jealous because your Gundam makes your butt look fat." 

It took him a moment to sort that little non-sequitor out. Then he snorted, collapsing back against the wall before going into full blown laughter. I managed to keep it together long enough to finish brushing my hair, then I, too, had to lean against the wall while I laughed until my ribs hurt. 

It was dumb, yeah, but it made me glad that laughter was the only thing on the planet more virulent than Ebola. It was nice to pretend to be normal on occasion. 

We had to take the train out to the little shop o' horrors known as Carmelita's. We'd moved, and it was on the opposite end of town now. It hadn't been intentional, but it was sure a fringe benefit. We ended up wandering around for about fifteen minutes while I tried to remember how the hell to get to it from the train station. Wufei was absolutely no help - it was amazing how well the guy could forget things he didn't want to know. 

Then we turned a corner, and there it was, just like I'd remembered it. Ah, the tattered black window drapes. Ah, the peeling paint. Ah, the flickering red neon. And of course, the men furtively coming and going with their collars turned up and their hats pulled love over their eyes. What a sight. What a place. 

"Well," I said, "Nice to know that some things just never change." 

Wufei made a sour noise, keeping a wary eye on the men in trench coats. I couldn't blame him - his cute little ass had gotten grabbed by a total stranger on our last adventure here. He hadn't taken it to well. I just figured the groper was lucky he'd only ended up with a snapped wrist instead of a snapped neck. 

I strolled up to the shop with practiced cool that I'd learned by watching cats. My walk said I belonged, and no one even bothered to look at me because if it. I'd learned a long time ago that the best way to get anywhere, be it a porn shop or a military base, is to walk it casual and confident, and people would normally assume you were where you were supposed to be. 

The moment I opened the door, we were engulfed in a wave of noise. It was heavy metal up to ear bleeding levels, with singers that screamed and guitarists that seemed to be torturing their instruments to death. The base was so high that it rumbled in the floor, tickling my feet. I dragged Wufei inside and the door slammed shut behind us, leaving us in the dim little den on iniquity. The musky incense they always used made me sneeze. 

A woman came slinking up quickly. I was pretty sure the only real thing on her body was her nose. Her boobs were bigger than my head, her hair was blonde - not normally a natural color for Japanese women, and it was also eye-hurting televangelist girlfriend platinum - and her lips... scared me. It took a moment for it to register that we were kids. 

I waved my hands disarmingly, smiling. "Hey, I know, we're too young to be in here. We're just looking for a friend of our...mom's. Her name's Hara. She's got the spare key to our house, and my brother and I just locked ourselves out..." 

It said a lot about her mental capacity that she accepted the lame, spur-of-the-moment story without so much as the blink of any eye. There was also the fact that she squeaked when she talked, setting my teeth on edge. "Hara? She's not here." 

"She's not? Mom said she was working today." 

The girl frowned. "Your mom needs to talk to her more often, I think. She hasn't been here in a while. I think she got fired." 

"Shit." I rubbed my forehead and did my best to look piteous. "Can you tell us where she lives? Because otherwise we're going to be locked out for a long, long time. Mom works really late." 

"Doesn't your mom know where she lives?" 

"She moved recently, I think. Something like that. Maybe you could just check where her last paycheck got sent or something? Please, lady, we're depending on you." 

I reached out and touched her hand. Half of it was to go with the act. The other half was because I was curious. When I touched her, there was no electric tingle, no reaction when I poked at her very lightly with my power. She was mundane, through and through. After the last couple days, it was something of a relief, even if the timing was damn inconvenient. 

"Ummm... let me go talk to the manager. You boys stay right here, and don't touch anything. Try not to look at anything either. You're too young." She went jiggling off. And I had to say, fake as it might have been, she had a nice butt. 

Wufei leaned forward so he could speak in my ear. I could feel heat practically radiating off of him - he had to be blushing something fierce. "Our...mother?" 

"Hey, she bought it, didn't she? I guess we look alike after all." 

We had to wait for about five minutes before she came back, but it felt a lot longer. I snitched a lollipop that was shaped like a penis off of a display and ate it, figuring hey, candy is candy no matter what shape it's in. It was cherry flavored, which I found amusing to no end. 

After jiggling her way back to us, the girl handed me a piece of paper, smiling vapidly. I could almost feel my IQ being sucked away. "Okay, the manager wrote it down for you. But she says you'd better not come back here again, ever." 

I smiled at her, bowing a couple times for good measure. "Thank you so much! We're sorry to be so much trouble." 

"It's okay. Just run along and play. Don't get in trouble," she said, waving. 

We didn't need any more encouragement to get the hell out. I glanced down at the paper once we were out and blinking in the natural light. There was an address written on it in black ink, nothing else. "This isn't too far. We can walk it." I said. 

And we did. 

Hara's apartment building was actually pretty nice, though not to the point of being swanky. It was tall, but had a pretty granite facade and mirrored windows with just enough tint to set off the color of the rock. Not too shabby. We took an elevator with plush blue carpet up to the twenty-first floor. Her apartment was at the end of the hallway. The door was stained dark mahogany, and there was a little gold knocker shaped like a bird on it, which I used. 

No answer. 

While Wufei kept me covered, I picked the lock. It was like child's play - funny how nice places normally had crappy security. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, and I stepped cautiously inside. "Excuse me!" I called. 

Silence. The air in the apartment was slightly stale, like the door had been closed for a long time. I sniffed a little more deeply, but couldn't catch anything more worrying. 

I had to hand it to Hara, she had taste. Her furniture was all wood and simple fabrics. Everything matched. She had massive bookshelves full of leather bound volumes that had to have cost more than I cared to think about. Wufei and I padded silently in on the plush carpet. That was when I noticed that there was a layer of dust, on everything. 

"Not good," I said, "not good at all." 

We moved through her living room and into the bedroom. There was a roll-top desk there, open, with papers scattered across the floor. Even stranger, there was a perfect circle, maybe half a meter across, burned into the carpet. I bent down to touch it cautiously. The burned carpet fibers fell to ash. It didn't smell like anything more interesting than burnt carpet, and I couldn't tell what could have caused it, just that it wasn't natural. "Check the desk, 'Fei." I said. "I'm going to poke my head into the bathroom." 

I'd been half expecting to find the bathroom mirror shattered, but this time, I was disappointed. Everything was as neat and clean and covered with dust, like the rest of the apartment. The theme color was a light sort of coral, with gold fixtures. I noted idly that Hara and I used the same sort of shampoo, and the same brand of toothpaste, of all things. She'd pasted pictures of flowers onto the glass of the door that separated her bathtub from the rest of the room. This was pretty much the last place in the apartment to look. I opened the door cautiously, every nerve on the alert. 

It says a lot when you get more nervous when nothing jumps out at you. 

Nothing. Sponges, various scrubby pads and bath gels, most of them quite nice and a bit expensive. Everything wasn't neat here, however. The bottles had been knocked down and scattered, the little shower head hung limp and broken. I stepped cautiously in. I could smell nothing but flowery bath soap. 

There was a strange, rusty stain in the tub. If I'd been in a single guy's apartment, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash at it. But considering the state the rest of the place had been in, this definitely didn't belong. I reached down to touch it, wondering if it would flake off... 

My power stirred, and an impression slammed into my mind, nearly knocking me over. I had to grab the edge of the tub for support, and my entire hand flattened against the stain. 

Memory invaded my mind. There was no other way to describe it; suddenly I saw Hara, smelled her shampoo. She spoke in hurried tones, words that I couldn't make out. She was angry, upset, and frightened. Then she spoke clearly, her voice cold with rage: "Never! I won't join!" Then a blur, then a scream, and blood trickling into the bathtub... 

I dropped back onto my ass, trying to remember how to breathe. Two plastic facial scrub bottles fell off the edge of the tub, the clatter echoing in the little stall. 

"Duo? Are you alright?" Wufei hurried into the bathroom. "You shouted..." 

I shook my head, rubbing my arms. Every hair on my body was standing on end. The power within me subsided, satisfied that it'd shown me a new trick. "Hara's dead, Wufei. I don't know how, or when, or even really why, but she's dead. Something killed her, here, because she wouldn't do something." I rubbed my eyes. "It dropped into my head." 

"How do you know?" He asked. 

I pointed at the tub. "I think that's blood. It has to be. I touched it, and got the impression of her death downloaded into my brain. Fuck, I hate this shit!" I scrubbed at my eyes with my hands. 

Wufei frowned, his brow furrowing. He didn't seem to really know what to say, so he moved on. That was probably the best plan. "I didn't find anything of direct interest in her desk. The only thing is that one drawer had a false bottom. Whatever was in there is gone now." He offered me a hand up, which I took. 

"Let's get out of here. I don't think we're going to find anything else." And I wanted to get away from this place. I guess it should have been a relief that I was able to feel something of her death, because it meant whatever horrible thing was out there, destroying people's souls, hadn't come here. Strange, but that didn't make me feel any better. 

As we walked from the bathroom, I thought I saw a ragged edge of black out of the corner of my eye, just the tiniest hint of movement. When I turned to look at it, though, there was nothing - just the bathroom mirror, and my reflection. I shook my head and hurried to catch up with Wufei, feeling like someone had just walked over my grave. 

Everyone that could possibly give us help was turning up dead. No wonder I was getting jumpy. 


	7. Chapter 7

Anax Tristis 7 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 7_

I didn't sleep much that night, even though it was the last night before the mission and I really should have been trying to get some rest. Every time I closed my eyes, I couldn't do anything but remember every nasty sight that had been crammed into two short days. Three and a half corpses in 48 hours - that worked out to a little more than one corpse per fourteen hours. One per twelve if Une gave up the ghost and went from being half a corpse to a whole one. Yes, it was so bad I was doing math in my head. 

Of everything, it was the smell that was the worst; people tend to underestimate how powerful sensations are to the mind. It was all about the smell or the feeling that connected with a sight. That's what gave things power. 

So all I could think about was the smell of blood and sickness, or somehow more disturbing, the stale, dusty air of a closed apartment. It all made me remember other faces with eyes shut tight with dried blood, searching blindly for mercy. 

So yeah, no sleep for Duo. 

And no sleep for Wufei either, it seemed. As I lay in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, I heard the rustling of fabric and a soft gasp. Wufei slipped out of his bed, clumsy enough that I could track his progress to the door by sound alone. 

For a moment, I thought about getting up and following him, making sure he was alright. But I knew the guy far too well; he wouldn't appreciate me intruding on his nightmare, any more than I'd appreciate it if the tables were turned. Pain's a highly personally thing, at least for guys. Sort of like how wolves always drag themselves away to hide when they need to lick their wounds. 

When the first watery light of dawn turned the room's walls dingy grey, I gave up even pretending to sleep and extracted myself from the rat's nest of blankets. Idly re-braiding my hair, I stumbled over to the desk and turned on my laptop. Yeah, I'd finally gotten off my ass and, ah, acquired one shortly before Heero left. It didn't seem like a smart idea to leave us without private internet access. Some things, you just didn't do with library computers - surfing porn and hacking military databases were two examples that sprang instantly to mind. 

By the light of the monitor, I opened the top desk drawer, messing around with the right side of it until I found the pressure release for the quick and dirty false bottom I'd stuck in it upon our arrival at the school. It yielded two things - the little metal dart, still wrapped in my hanky, and my Little Black Box. 

And trust me, the LBB deserved the capitalization. 

The LBB was a collaboration between Heero and I, conceived when I was drunk and he was bored. You had to hand it to the kid - he was a natural at electronic crime second only to yours truly, and had been as long as I'd known him. His expertise was more in the hardware department, though, while I truly shone when it came to being a console cowboy - programs start to finish. The other pilots didn't come close to us, and we didn't have the time or patience to teach them anything. But we also couldn't just leave them, since we couldn't always do the hacks but we sure didn't want them giving us away. So, the LBB was born. Heero had put the mini-computers together; what was in them, I couldn't tell; a lot of wires, a couple microprocessors, and some serious magic blue smoke. I provided the binary voodoo that gave the collection of bits a soul, and it was ready to rumble, easy enough for even Quatre - the most computer illiterate of the bunch - to figure out. All you had to do was run your LAN or internet connection through it, and you could suddenly cut through ice, up to low-level military stuff, like a hot knife through butter. 

When we showed the guys how to use them, the only comment had come from Quatre: "I'm glad you guys are on our side." Yeah, well, there you go. 

So anyway, I plugged the LBB in and switched it on; a little red LED on top of it started blinking, and that was the only sign that it was working. Technically speaking, I didn't even need an LBB, but I was lazy and that meant I wouldn't have to waste time on low level security systems. I dug my lock picking kit out of my pocket and sorted through it until I found my magnifying lens. It wasn't something I used often; lock picking was more of an intuitive, by feel sort of thing, but it was great for eyeballing miniaturized hinges or tripwire assemblies when things got to the nasty, mono-filament side of booby traps. 

I took more care than was probably necessary unwrapping the dart; there was no way of telling it had been entirely spent when Noin handed it over, and I wasn't really thrilled by the idea of a dirty needle stick either. I could end up with the lycanthrope version of the Red Death, or who knew what kind of funky germs that werewolves carried around - especially ones that could very well be fucking vampires. 

Ugh, now there was a mental image I could have lived my life happily without. Thanks, brain. Remind me to kill you with beer later. 

It wasn't hard to find what I was looking for on the little dart - the serial number was written in tiny lines just about the point where the needle joined the barrel. 

The search itself? Not so easy. I had to figure out which digits of the serial number indicated company of manufacture. Then I had to hack the sales/manufacture database of the company and find one dart amongst millions and work out who it had been sold to. The company was Chiba Kagami Manufacturing, Ltd, and they were one of those annoying businesses that used account numbers only on orders, probably just to piss off guys like me. So I had to do a little more hacking around to figure out who belonged to the account number. By the time I was done, I was about ready to leave a nasty surprise for their database and sysadmin as thanks for being so fucking efficient and making me work for it. 

Surprise, surprise. The account belonged to the R&D division of Romefeller, and the shipment had gone to - even better - the research lab that Wufei and I would be doing recon on tonight. What a coincidence. 

And we all knew how much Uncle Duo loved coincidences. 

Suddenly, I wanted to have a chat with Dr. Schbeiker. One that would quite possibly start out with my boot up his ass and only go downhill from there. 

Except two hours later, I was no closer to finding him for said chat. His lab existed, yeah, I had the specs to prove it, but as far as the network was concerned, he had no employees and didn't actually exist himself. This was all complicated by the fact that the mysterious Dr. Schbeiker didn't have a first name, either. 

With no luck in the government or lower level military databases - they had this guy buttoned tight - I figured what the hell, if I was going to waste my day on the computer, I might as well check domestic and commercial databases. The military might have their shit together on their own network, but I'd encountered things on non-secure networks before that they'd totally missed. Top Secret wasn't always. 

I wrote up a quick worm that would sift through the transaction records and send me anything interesting and sent it off into the net to take care of the non-secure stuff while I started checking the major banks. It took me a couple of hours, working my way up to the big International financial institutions. Finally, when I was about to give up and go get myself some compensation coffee, my worm popped me a message about a transaction in a department store in Shinjuku that originated on a credit card issued by the First Bank of Munich to H. Schbeiker. Heinrich, Henri, Hartmut... whatever. It worked. Hah, you bastard. Gotcha. 

Once I had the ID on that credit card, it was pathetically easy to put a trace on that account, hack into the bank, and check the transaction history. 

Dr. Schbeiker, it seemed, had a penchant for books, a nice chardonnay, and lived in a small apartment in Roppongi. Even more interesting, he did all of his purchasing online and then had everything delivered. 

I printed out the information that I had and stuffed it into my back pocket. There was enough that it made the ass of my pants stick out quite nicely. I needed to collect Wufei - it was time for us to go visiting. 

Wufei was down in the tennis courts, which was the third place I checked. They were echoingly empty during break, and a decently secluded spot. I heard him before I saw him; harsh breathing echoed along the concrete walls that surrounded the courts. He was working himself into exhaustion; his hair and clothing clung to his skin, soaked through with sweat. As he ran through a series of punches, kicks, and blocks, I could see his hands trembling, ever so slightly. Bad sign. 

"Have you been here since this morning?" I asked, lacing my fingers through the chain link fence. 

Wufei completed the form, his back to me. He stood still and straight, his shoulders stiff as if he expected a blow from behind, and he didn't even acknowledge my presence until his breathing had slowed to normal. When he finally turned to face me, scraping loose locks of hair away from his forehead, his dark eyes were haunted. There was no other word for it; it was like all of his ghosts were staring out at me, begging for an end to their pain. 

The look was gone in the blink of an eye; his mask fell into place quickly, until he was once again calm and cool. His gaze was shuttered. "I've been remiss in practicing my forms in recent months." 

So that was how he wanted to play it. Fine, I knew better than to drag the skeletons out of some other guy's closet. I knew how much I hated it when people did that shit to me. "Don't be so hard on yourself. We've been busy lately." 

"That is no excuse." 

"Oh, that's right, because Chang Wufei is not like us mere morals." I said, giving him my best sneer. "Where does it leave me if you half kill yourself? You're my partner, I need you functional." 

"Sometimes I wonder..." he said, flexing his hands. He didn't seem to want to look me in the eye, and I wasn't sure why. 

"What?" 

"It's not important." 

"Man, did you go to the Heero Yuy School of interpersonal communication and charm? You're starting to sound like it!" 

He smiled. It was a sheepish little expression, but it was a start. "Point taken." 

"Some day you'll finally admit that I'm always right. Your life would be so much easier if you'd stop fighting it." 

Wufei snorted, then bent to pick up his white jacket where it lay on the court in a discarded heap. "I only wish that you would stop dragging us so righteously into trouble." 

"Hey, I don't go looking for it! It comes gunning for me," I said. "But seriously, man, I am sorry. I don't know why you guys keep following me into the pit of hell." 

Wufei walked up to me and actually laid his hand on my shoulder. "Because as infuriating as you are, Duo, none of us can encompass a life without you. You have, in your annoying American way, infiltrated our lives and become that which holds us together, no matter how separated by distance we become. You have forced us to care - and for that, I can't give you gratitude. It has made my life difficult. I have long been accustomed to having nothing to lose." 

So was that a compliment or not? I really didn't know, and I don't think he knew either. "Wufei..." 

He squeezed my shoulder. "Not good or bad, Duo. Just a fact to be considered. I have found that every strength is a weakness, and likewise every weakness is a strength. It's all in the turn of strategy you take." 

"Life as a military campaign, huh?" 

"So far." Wufei wiped sweat away from his eyes, then gave up and peeled off his shirt. His skin shone with the sheen of sweat. He'd filled out a lot in the last year, same as me, except his muscles were a lot nicer. Huzzah for kung fu. 

I realized I was staring. Suddenly, the lines painted on the court seemed really interesting. 

"So, Duo, was there a reason you were looking for me, other than to deliver your harangue?" 

"Oh, yeah." I risked glancing up. Wufei was blotting himself dry with the shirt. A soft breeze pulled a few strands of hair loose from his ponytail. "Yeah," I repeated, "so anyway, I did a little independent research this morning. Remember our mad scientist?" 

"Schbeiker." 

"Well, I found him, or at least someone using his credit account." 

Wufei tucked the much abused shirt in the waistband of his pants and let it hang, crossing his arms over his chest. "And what were you planning to do with this information?" 

That wasn't quite what I'd been expecting. "What do you mean? Let's go have a chat with him." 

"Don't you think that could jeopardize the mission?" 

"Actually, no," I said, "you see, I look at it this way. We go to Schbeiker, we beat the information we need out of him, and if he turns out to be a bad guy we neutralize him." 

Wufei shook his head, and tried to adjust a pair of glasses that he wasn't actually wearing. "At the risk of becoming a broken record, don't you think that could jeopardize the mission." 

"Think about it. We find out what we want, and if Schbeiker is a bad guy, we can hit the installation ahead of schedule, using our newly acquired knowledge. Get it all taken care of in one fell swoop. If there isn't anything biological, we blow it. If there is, we turn the fuckers over to the world press and the CDC." I grinned. "Besides, if we can steal his lab ID, it'll get us in nice and easy. I won't have to take part every frigging door lock." 

Wufei nodded. "You've thought about it, at least. Have you contacted Doctor G or Roshi O?" 

"Nope." I shrugged. "They made us to be independent operatives, didn't they? Well then, they can't complain when we put all the training to good use." 

"I doubt the scientists will enjoy being surpassed by their own creations." 

"Yeah, but do you care?" 

He smiled, and the expression was positively wolfish. "I haven't since they revealed the true nature of Operation Meteor. This is our mission now." 

"That's my Wufei." I grinned and held out my hand. We did our stupid little handshake and banged out fists together. Then Wufei broke down laughing. "What's so funny?" I asked, barely suppressing a snicker of my own. 

"Some day, Duo, we'll have to grow up." 

I waggled a finger at him. "Grow old, 'Fei. We have to grow old. No one said jack about growing up." 

He nodded his agreement. "We'll go meet Dr. Schbeiker, then. But I think I should bathe first." He ran over his damp hair, grimacing. 

"Yeah, we don't want the smell to warn him we're coming." 

Wufei only shook his head and lightly punched my arm as he walked by. I was pretty sure I'd have a bruise there tomorrow. Guy forgot his own strength at times, especially when he'd just finished his workout. 

A couple hours and some train tickets later, a much cleaner Wufei and I were standing outside Schbeiker's apartment building. It was an okay looking place, but not really what I'd been imagining as a mad scientist's digs. 

"Which apartment is it?" Wufei asked. 

"618." 

He counted the windows on the sixth floor, finally pointing at one apartment. "That should be it." 

I pulled a scope out of my pocket, extending it with a practiced flick of my wrist. "Bicycle, one wooden chair...not anything interesting, really. No glass tubes with nasty things in them or stuff like that." 

"I hadn't imagined he'd be that obvious." 

"Hey, you never know. I mean, shit, man, they don't exactly live in the same reality as the rest of us. Just look at those shirts Howard wears, for God's sake." 

"Point. We haven't seen him recently, have we?" 

"Not since the end of the war. Who knows what he's up to, but hopefully it's been more productive than our efforts..." That was a sore point I'd been meaning to mull over, ever since Heero went to Kyoto. I'd think about it later. "Hey, will you look at this... either Schbeiker has him a little woman, or there's a side of his personality that the dossier didn't catch." 

Wufei didn't so much rise to the bate as laconically glance at it. "Oh?" Still, it was the line I wanted, even if the enthusiasm needed a little work. 

"You could try to sound a bit more interested, 'Fei." 

"I imagine you'll get to the point eventually whether I help or not." 

"Such a dick," I said. "Fine, rain on my parade. Anyway, he's got a nice little herb and flower garden going in some pretty ceramic pots." 

"Herbs?" He raised his eyebrow with that special ironic arch. 

"Oh, nothing illegal. Looks like mint, lemon grass, sage... shit like that." 

"Perhaps the good Doctor has a green thumb." 

"Stranger things have happened. Vegetarian painters and all that. I guess we'll find out soon enough." I tucked the scope back into my pocket and brushed my jacket off, surreptitiously adjusting my gun for comfort. "You got the packages?" 

"I've only been holding them since we left the school." 

I flipped him off without really looking. "Let's go, then." He tossed one of the boxes to me. It was empty and light, but brightly wrapped. It was all about the presentation. 

The apartment building was a lot newer than I'd guessed. It had a nice little glass kill box setup going to control entry to the lobby, something that had only gotten popular since the gaijin like me had really start immigrating in earnest. We walked on in, doing our best to look like bored high school students on a part time delivery job. 

I located the buzzer that was labeled 'Shubaikaa' in katakana and gave it a couple enthusiastic stabs with my finger. 

The voice that came from the speaker was unmistakably female. "Who is it?" 

"Taki-ya, miss. Delivery for Schbeiker." 

"Ah, good, bring it right up." The speaker popped off and the door into the lobby unlocked. 

Wufei gave me a doubtful look, which I shrugged off. "So he's got himself a luscious popsie. Not a pretty thought, but not impossible. I mean, how many Schbeikers do you think are running around Tokyo?" 

We stayed silent in the elevator - you never knew where surveillance would be. The hall was empty and utilitarian, apartment 618's door no less so. It made me nudge Wufei in the ribs. "Hey, look, Schbeiker's behind the green door." 

"That is not a thought I wish to touch." 

"Hey, all comic geniuses are underappreciated in their time, you realize." I fell silent as we came closer to the door, then nodded to Wufei, signaling him to knock while I stood to one side, gun cocked and ready to go. 

It was the best plan ever, as far as I was concerned. If by some miracle it wasn't the Schbeiker we were looking for - and I failed to see how that could happen - we could just hand over the empty boxes and play dumb. 

Yeah. Was. 

I heard one lock click, and then the sound of a bolt being drawn back. Pause. Wufei frowned, which I answered with a shrug, tightening my grip on my gun. 

Then she spoke. "I know one of you has a gun, but you're not going to shoot me, because I'm not the one you're looking for." 

Wufei looked positively dismayed. I seconded that. 

She continued. "I think I can help you, though, and I think that I should. So I'm going to open the door now. I'm trusting you more than I ever have anyone else." 

The door began to open. 


	8. Chapter 8

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 8_

The woman behind the green door - man, I still couldn't think of that without laughing - wasn't anything like what I'd expected. She was pretty, for one, not bimbo at all. Just sort of cute in a tomboy kid sister kind of way. She also looked like she hadn't slept well in quite some time. Her eyes had that hollow, hungry look, and she was ever so slightly thinner than was healthy. Even stranger, she was wearing her bathrobe, a fluffy green affair, even though it was well after noon. "Please, come in," she said. Now, I could detect the slight hint of an accent, probably German considering her last name. 

Wufei and I looked at each other. I shrugged, then he followed suit. We stepped into the apartment with great caution, leaving our empty boxes sitting in the hallway so our hands would be free. She didn't look like much of a threat, but you never knew these days. 

The apartment was spotless with that particular sort of ruthless undertone I'd seen in every German I'd ever met. The furnishings were mostly neutral, with dark greens thrown here and there, nice and soothing. The entire thing was a single room, the kitchen divided from the living space with a beige countertop that could be used for cooking or as a table. 

The woman backed away from us the moment we stepped in, shoving her hands into the pockets of her robe. She didn't stop backing until she'd reached the apartment's small living area, where she sat down in the only chair. Her posture was odd, as if she was in pain, and very defensive. She looked even tenser than I felt. "Please close the door behind you," she said. 

Wufei frowned. "Why?" 

"Because you're closer to the door than I am, and that way I don't have to get behind you. I don't want you to take anything the wrong way," she said, dead serious, "because you've done some rather not-nice things in the past. But the door needs to be shut, because my neighbors will be walking down the hall soon." 

I snorted, then pulled the door shut, making certain it was unlocked. "I like a gal that knows how to do her research." 

"Research. Right." She shook her head. 

Wufei moved up to the small counter, keeping it between him and the girl. I leaned against the wall next to the door, ready to facilitate our escape at a moment's notice. Paranoid, us? "So, if you don't mind me asking, lady, who are you? You're not exactly the person we were expecting." 

"I imagine not." Her laugh was a bitter one indeed. "My name is Hilde Schbeiker." 

Wufei shot me a look, but I played it cool. "That makes sense, I guess. Any relation to - " 

She cut me off cold. "Dr. Schbeiker was my father. It's okay, you don't have to pretend you're interested in his work or anything. I know you're not here for that." 

"Actually, at the moment, I'm more interested in the 'was' you threw in there. Has something happened to your father, Ms. Schbeiker?" I asked. 

"He's not dead, if that's what you mean, but he may as well be." She drew her hands from her pockets so that she could clasp them together. Her knuckles were white. "He's certainly not my father any more." 

I returned Wufei's look, with interest. "What do you mean?" he asked. 

"There used to be a man that sang me to sleep and took me for long walks in the park. He bought me toys and held my hand when I had to go to the dentist. Then his work took him here, and my mother divorced him." She raked her hand through her hair. "He invited me here a few months ago, when I finished school, and I came because I hadn't seen him in over a year." Suddenly tears were running from her eyes. She let out a strangled sob, and then another. "The man that picked me up at the airport... wasn't him! He took my hand and I saw... God protect me!" 

We were at a loss for a moment. No guy likes to deal with a crying woman. Personally, I would rather have been disarming landmines using only my teeth. "Smooth move," I muttered at Wufei. 

"This was all your idea," he growled back at me. 

I ignored him. "Go on, work your magic. You're Mr. New Age and Smooth." 

Muttering murderously to himself all the while in Chinese, he crossed the scant floor space and knelt by her chair as I kept my brain wide open for any hints of supernatural funkiness. Just as he was about to touch her arm, she jerked back. 

"Don't touch me! Just... don't touch me. You don't want me to know that much. **I** don't want to know that much!" 

Wufei snatched his hand back, then shifted back on his heels. "Then you need to calm down and explain, Hilde. I think we will want to help you, but you must tell us the situation first." 

"I know," she said, scrubbing at her eyes. I could tell now that she bit her nails, and that there were a lot of worrying cuts and abrasions on her hands and wrists. 

Wufei pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and draped it across her knee, careful not to touch her. 

"Thank you," Hilde said thickly, picking it up. She closed her eyes for a moment, stiffening, her mouth twisting into an odd look of pain. "I see," she whispered, opening her eyes and then wiping her nose as if nothing odd was going on, "I'll try to explain. But please... don't think I'm crazy. You might already, but you have to believe me!" 

I waved off the approach of hysteria as reassuringly as I could. "Lady, trust me, we don't call anyone crazy at this point." 

She blew her nose and nodded. I could have sworn that Wufei winced. "When... he... took my hand, I saw things. I saw disjointed images... blood, people screaming, broken mirror, a white room, a knife, a needle. It was all so horrible!" 

She cried again, and this time I didn't even try to interfere. The images she described rolled through my mind - it was all too familiar. I didn't like it one bit, and I liked the way none of it added up even less. 

"I'm sorry," she murmured, her voice thick. 

I let Wufei do the talking. "It's alright. Go one if you can." 

"Since then, I've been seeing things. Every time I touch someone, every time I touch something that's not mine. Sometimes I don't even have to touch anything at all. I'll be washing dishes, and suddenly I'm somewhere else, watching people I don't know." When she looked up, her eyes were red, but finally dry. "That's how I knew you were coming. I know you can help me. You have to help me!" 

I shook my head. "What do you want from us, lady? We don't have a lot of give." 

She was twisting the handkerchief so hard that I was surprised it didn't tear. When she spoke, her voice was so soft that I could barely hear her. "I need you to kill him." 

Maybe I should have expected it. But it made something inside me die to hear a civilian talk like that. It wasn't something I ever wanted to have to expect. 

"I need you to find the monster that's wearing my father's face to do terrible things, and kill it. Please. It has to be stopped." 

I shrugged when Wufei glanced at me, so he took the lead. "We had already been planning to do so. Can you tell us anything else?" 

"No. I've been hiding here ever since I arrived. I don't know anything that could help you. I don't want to know any more - I want to keep the true memories of my father pure." 

That was a big fucking help. I pulled a scrap of paper out of my pocket and wrote one of my safe e-mail addresses down on it. "I'll leave some contact info on your counter. Let me know immediately if you think of anything. The sooner we find him, the sooner this will be over." 

She uncurled her fingers, staring at her hands as if they belonged to someone else. "It's never going to be over." 

It was one of my stupid little impulses, but I'd learned to go with them a long time ago. I reached her chair in a few steps while I dug my gloves out of my pocket. They were new, black leather, and had been a bitch and a half to steal. I didn't hesitate for an instant as I held them out to her. "Here. I haven't worn these much, so they shouldn't be too bad I hope. You can't hide in your apartment forever." 

She stared at me for a long moment as if expecting a lie to be written across my face before she took the gloves, careful not to touch me. "Thank you." 

"By the way, we never introduced ourselves, huh. My name's Duo. This is Wufei." I jerked my thumb at him, giving her a big grin before becoming serious again. "I know how it is, Hilde. I woke up my morning and my world went to shit too. Twice, even. You can do it, even if it sucks at the moment." 

Hilde only shook her head, clutching the gloves to her chest. "I don't know if I believe you." 

"It's okay. You will. Ask Wufei, I'm never wrong." I grinned. 

Wufei laughed. "Well, he's fairly certain of that fact, at least." 

That got Hilde to laugh as well, when I made a face. End things on a positive note - that was the name of the game. We left her smiling, though we regained our seriousness the minute her door closed behind us. 

"I don't like it," Wufei said. 

"That makes two of us." 

We walked to the elevator. "And the mission is tonight." 

I stabbed the down button with one finger. "If we get a go message." 

"Do you for one moment think that we won't?" 

"No. And I want it, Wufei. So bad I can taste it. I want this done, I want this bullshit stopped. Add another life fucked up to the tally." 

We stepped into the elevator and headed down. Wufei shook his head once the doors were safely closed. "Don't let this mission become personal." 

I slammed my hand against the elevator wall. It didn't really make me feel any better. "I've got enough bad shit in my head, man. I don't want any more." 

"It's too late for that," Wufei said. 

"It always is," I agreed. 

On our way home, we swung by a couple of our mailboxes and I took a minute to download the independent surveillance I had going. The Docs normally were the ones to keep an eye on the big picture - that was how they knew to give us a go ahead - but lately I'd been doing a little of my own research. We'd been caught with our pants down and been forced to improvise one too many times because of stuff they'd conveniently forgotten to tell us. 

Wufei sorted through the reams and reams of paper we'd picked up, sitting cross-legged on his bed with his hair unbound and his glasses threatening to slip off the end of his nose. I reviewed the footage, going through most of the frames in fast forward since it was pretty boring shit. When I got to the stuff from the last couple of hours, it was a different matter entirely. Large trucks and vans, most of them unmarked, had begun to arrive at the lab. Workers were scurrying around, stacking piles of boxes and pallets of crates. 

"Shit," I muttered. 

"Is something amiss?" Wufei set his stack of paper down. I could have sworn I heard him let out a sigh of relief. 

"Looks like this whole deal might be a moot point. They started moving a lot of shit out of the lab today, no warning whatsoever." 

"Are they striking the entire operation?" 

I forwarded through the last couple hours, frame by frame. Since the little camera I'd rigged only took pictures every four minutes, it didn't take too long. "I don't think so. They carted a lot of shit off, but not enough to make a fully functioning lab. I'm guessing they're due for an inspection or something and they just got the incriminating shit the hell out of dodge." 

"But we can't be absolutely certain." 

"Nothing in life is, man. That's my best guess. In my inexpert opinion, we should still be go for the operation tonight. And we'd better hope it is tonight, in case they're just taking their time and finishing things up tomorrow." 

Wufei shuffled the papers together and straightened them up into a neat stack that he tucked under his bed. "We only have a few more hours. We should start getting ready." 

"Yeah, sure," I muttered, not really paying attention. I was going back through the footage once more, slower this time. There'd been something odd, somewhere between frame 10213 and 10246. There it was - the barest glimpse of one of the pallets being loaded on to a white truck. Four silver tubes that looked just about the right size to squeeze a person in to. Even better, I was pretty sure the objects next to those tubes were body bags. "Oh, isn't that cute." 

"What is it?" 

I held the viewer out to Wufei. He examined the frozen frame for a moment, and frowned. "Human experimentation." 

"That's sure my guess. Not really enough evidence to build a case, but it's sure got my hackles up. And they just fucking moved it." 

He shoved his glasses up higher on his nose. "We may be able to find out where this equipment was moved when we break in tonight. If they've gone to a more secure or remote location, luck may be with us and we'll just be able to strike with our Gundams." 

"I sure hope so. I want these fuckers more than ever. And they work for Oz. That's the best part. No way Treize can't know about this shit, man, no way. His ass is mine." 

"We'll work on it. I think it'll take a good deal more planning, not to mention resources." He said. 

I laughed. Yeah, I was well aware how insane I sounded. "Yeah. He's going to be a tough nut to crack. But what can I say, a guy's got to have goals." 

Wufei snorted, pulling his hair back into a pony tail and taking his glasses off. He tucked them in a black case that he stowed in one of the desk drawers. "I'll get the supplies together. Get online and watch for the go message, perhaps gather a little information. I'll be back soon." 

"Sure thing." I gave him the thumbs up as he left. Wufei had just stuck himself with the more difficult part of the job, and I really didn't mind. It was kind of funny, but for such a stationary, Zen kind of guy, he sure hated holding still before a mission these days. I guess everyone had their way of working the nervous energy off. Me, I talked non-stop or screamed my head off on missions where we had mecha. For covert ops, I'd spend my time building new and nasty attack progs to hit the systems with, which was satisfying in its own - if somewhat less visceral - way. 

I took the time to rebraid my hair nice and tight before anything else, the better to make sure no spare wispies escaped. There was nothing quite like being in the middle of a delicate op and having a stray hair attempt to crawl up your nose. It wasn't an experience I much cared to repeat. 

The next step was to check my guns, which took all of three minutes since I checked them every day. That was all I really needed to do, so I fired up the laptop, told the little black box to get me onto a secure network, and opened up the attack prog I'd been dinking with last week. It was only about halfway done, but it was going to end up being one of my most insidious and nasty yet. Administrators ran into my shit and cried. I was about halfway through tweaking a subroutine that was supposed to redirect outgoing security system traffic when a message window popped up. It was white text on a blue background, which meant it was from one of the other guys, not a contact or a random software jockey. 

_Qdog: you there, duo?  
DMan: Yeah, of course. I don't just sit on the internet for my health like ol' Spandex Buns.  
Qdog: that's what i was wondering. you only really ever hop on like this when there's a mission.  
DMan: What's so unusual about that?_

I saved the progress I'd made on the prog and closed the window down, then shuffled through the pencil drawer of the desk until I found my little stash of stolen restaurant toothpicks. I tore the cellophane wrapper off one and stuck it in the corner of my mouth. Mint flavored, yum yum. 

_Qdog: i was actually going to ask if you'd heard from the docs recently. trowa and i haven't, and when i caught heero on line a couple hours ago, he said they hadn't contact him since they sent him to kyoto._

Huh. I started to gnaw on the toothpick in earnest, kicking back in the chair so I could put my feet up on the already abused desk. 

_DMan: I still don't get what's bugging ya, man. It's not like they were regular pen pals or something. They'd just pop in when someone had to die or something needed to be blown up and ignore us the rest of the time.  
Qdog: but still, you have a mission now...  
__DMan: Yeah, but since we've been split up so it's just me'n 'Fei, it makes sense that they'd just tell the two of us and not the rest of you. Loose Lips Sink Ships sort of thing. Not that I think you'd talk, but the less people know about anything, the less of a security risk there is, right?  
Qdog: i guess youre right._

Minutes passed, and I reduced the toothpick to a few nasty shreds of wood pulp. I fished another one out of the desk as I spat the yuck out into the trash can. When I looked back up, he still hadn't said anything else.

_DMan: So, Q, now that we've got all that figured out, you want to tell me what's really bothering you? _

_Qdog: i don't know, i really don't. i guess it just seems strange that you guys have a mission, and none of us do.  
DMan: It's only been a couple days, Q. Chill, you'll get your shot soon enough.  
Qdog: honestly, i dont think id mind if i never did, duo. i know were doing this because the colonies need to be free, or at least equal, but i cant help but think that all were doing is trying to start another war. and i still cant believe that war does good.  
DMan: I really wonder too, man. But I also remember what Oz did to my home. And what they're doing now, and I can't let that continue. That's why we're on the prowl today...looks like a bioweapons lab of some sort. Maybe human experimentation.  
Qdog: i see.  
Qdog: it's just...damn, i hate sounding like this. i have a bad feeling, duo. about you and wufei, and now about this mission._

I kept smiling, but my stomach began to twist itself in a knot, and I sat up straight, putting my feet back on the floor. 

_DMan: What do you mean? Do you mean "I have a bad feeling" or "I Have A Bad Feeling" here?  
Qdog: ...the latter, i think._

Before I could type out a response, the laptop let off that annoying little trill that I'd set up to indicate a priority message. I pulled it up and decrypted it out of habit; I'd been doing this shit for what felt like most my life. The header information checked out as from G, and it simply read: 

_Mission is go.  
Euphrates_

That was that. We were good to go, and the mission parameters were confirmed. I erased the message and made sure it was completely out of the laptop's memory before returning to the message window. 

_DMan: Well, bad feeling or no, we just got the go message. It all checks out, so we're off as soon as Wufei gets back with the last of the supplies. I have some shit I need to get ready now, so I'd better log off.  
Qdog: just be careful.  
DMan: C'mon, Q, this is me we're talking about.  
Qdog: no wonder im worried._

I grinned. 

_DMan: Bite me, man. When I get back with nary a scratch on my beautiful hide, you owe me a fucking six pack.  
Qdog: as long as you get back safely, no problem.  
DMan: And I'm not talking about the wimpy regular cans. I'm talking the big one Liter cans, got it?  
Qdog: :) fine, fine, you'll have it.  
DMan: Talk to you later. Don't worry so much._

I logged off and shut the laptop down, then locked it in the big desk drawer. It wouldn't really do much if someone wanted my computer, but it made me feel better. Wufei got back while I was wiring timers on to some explosives and trying not to burn myself with the soldering gun. I wasn't anywhere the demolitions man that Trowa or Heero was, but I was still better at it than Wufei. My eyes stinging, I looked up at him as he dumped a bag of clothing and other gear on his bed and began sorting things out. "We got the go, man." 

"I figured as much." 

I nodded, returning to my work. "G gave us a euphrates go ahead, so this should be a milk run. No worries." 

"No worries," Wufei repeated. 

I'd told Quatre the same thing. Too bad I was having a hard time believing it myself now.


	9. Chapter 9

Anax Tristis 9 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 9_

We waited for night to fall in a small coffee shop about a mile away from the lab. There wasn't really a hiding point any closer, and I liked my staging grounds to be comfortable and come equipped with café lattes. We just waltzed in, wearing all black and carrying a duffel bag, and the customers were polite and Japanese enough to studiously ignore us. The coffee was okay, if nothing to write home about, but the cream cake was absolutely orgasmic. I ate four pieces while we waited for the sun to finish setting and the sky to turn velvet black. 

Wufei shuffled crumbs from his croissant around on his plate with the tiny golden fork he'd taken from me. My toying with sharp objects apparently made him nervous; I guess he preferred to toy with them himself. "I think we're almost at hour zero," he said. 

"Looks like it." I checked my watch. "Let's head out, then." 

We left after paying and headed toward the lab, taking the back route of alleyways and cutting through train stations. One of the things I loved best about Japan was that we could walk the alleys without risking our lives or our shoes. In one alley, we paused to ditch the duffel bag, festooning ourselves with the contents. We looked like something straight out of a spy movie when we were done. Everything was black and padded for silence, from climbing hooks to glasscutters to guns to computers. We were going in loaded for bear. 

A chain link fence, topped with razor wire, surrounded the lab. Which was fine, since we weren't going anywhere near the top. Wufei got out the wire cutters and started snipping the chain away from the fence post while I took care of the two security cameras that covered our insertion point. It was the simple matter of splicing a little black box into their image feed; I'd grab my hardware on the way back out and no one would even be able to tell I'd interfered unless they inspected very closely. 

The building itself was a two-story brick box, just about one of the ugliest things I'd ever seen. The rear, where we stood, was a featureless tan wall, broken by a single, heavy metal door in the exact center and a shuttered loading dock to one side. There was no way for anyone from the building to see us, since we'd established early on that they weren't paranoid enough to post guards on the roof. An overconfident enemy, just how I liked 'em. So Wufei and I simply slipped through the fence and walked across the well-lit concrete yard bold as you please. Which was fine with me, since I always felt silly doing cockroachy scurrying unless absolutely necessary. 

The door was a little tougher, but not by much. It had an electro-magnetic lock that was controlled with a keypad. I couldn't kill the door without taking out an entire section of the municipal power grid, and that was a little obvious. Plus, most doors had backup mechanical dead locks that I'd need an acetylene torch to break through. All of course assuming that the building didn't have a backup generator if the power went out. So really, it was better to just unlock it the semi-normal way. 

I had a knife strapped to my left thigh; I used it to pop the plastic cover off the keypad, catching it with my free hand before it could hit the ground. "Here, hold this," I whispered, handing the panel to Wufei. The guts of the panel were a morass of color coded wires. I went straight for the green ones and spliced my pocket computer right in. I had an attack prog designed specifically for the primitive lock processors, and it went through like a hot knife in butter, cutting the door off from the network and disengaging the lock. I grinned at the soft click and started undoing my splices, shoving the wires back into the box and snapping the panel in place. "Let's go, we've got three hours until the program cycles down and the interruption will be noticed."

Wufei nodded and drew his knife (which I still insisted was actually a sword) from his back, then opened the door with such slow caution that it made me want to tear my hair out. Finally satisfied that it wasn't going to explode or something, he stepped inside and gestured me through. 

My turn. I summoned up the mental image of the floor maps I'd memorized, and off we went. Most people didn't like running lead on missions. I was one of them. But I was the best lead man for our teams, and I had the best rearguard I'd ever met, so I wasn't going to complain. 

The lab was only minimally manned during off hours; security guards, an on-call sysadmin, maybe the odd scientist that needed to do an experiment at night. The hall lights had been turned off everywhere but intersections, so everything was in shades of charcoal. Our feet made no sound on the carpet as we crept along. It all reminded me of way too many bad slasher flicks. 

There had to be miles of hall, flat and featureless, broken only by the occasional fire alarm pull or framed picture that it was too dark to see anyway. It was a fucking labyrinth that spiraled into the building's center, which held sealed labs of some sort - probably hot labs, as much as that thought scared the hell out of me - and the computer server room, which was my target. 

Three turns in, I caught a flicker of movement in one of the round mirrors conveniently stuck on the ceiling. I gave Wufei the signal to stop with one hand, and we slid into the dark recess of a doorway. It wasn't much protection; thank God we were both relatively small. The movement resolved into a security guard wearing an ugly khaki blazer. He was carrying a heavy flashlight, and was armed. The light circle created by the flashlight swept back and forth across the grey and maroon carpet as he looked our way. Beside me, Wufei tensed, reading to leap at the man as I began to slip my gun from its holster. The circle of light moved closer and closer, now only a few inches away from my feet... 

Then the guard turned and started walking away from us, singing quietly to himself in Japanese. It sounded like an Okinawan folksong to me. 

"Nice singing voice," I murmured. 

Wufei grabbed my arm and gave it a warning squeeze. I took it to mean he was politely requesting that I shut the hell up. I shrugged out of his hold. He had a great sense of humor normally, but when he was on, he was _on_. We'd joke about it later. 

We gave the guard another minute or two to change his mind and come back before we got moving again, taking the hall he'd just come out of. 

One hundred and fifty meters out from the server room, disaster tried to strike again. We passed in front of a set of bathrooms, and a moment later, the women's room door opened, flooding the hall with light and half blinding us. Wufei spun and pounced before the lady in the doorway even really had a chance to figure out what was going on. One hand went arrowing to the side of her neck and she folded like a cheap lawn chair. Somehow, he caught her and dragged her into the bathroom in a single, fluid motion. I followed, kicking the crumpled ball of paper towels that had fallen from her fingers in front of me. 

Wufei lowered her to the floor and stood up. His shoulders and arms sang with tension. "She saw us," he said. His voice was flat and strained. 

I walked over, pulling my gun and resting it against her temple. She was young and had silver wire frame bifocals. I could imagine she had a cute smile, too. What the fuck was I turning in to? "No," I whispered, shaking my head and holstering my gun, "if we finish the job, it's not like they won't know we were here. She didn't get a good look at us, and she'll be out for a while. We leave her." 

Wufei nodded. I'd never seen him look so relieved. "You're lead on the mission." 

"If I'd decided the opposite, what would you have done?" I asked. It suddenly seemed very important. 

"I don't know." Wufei admitted. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I find that very disturbing." 

"You and me both." I shook my head. "What are we turning in to, Wu?" 

Wufei shook his head. "We can figure it out later. We have a time table. And I don't want to think about it right now." 

We dragged her into the handicapped stall and set her up against the wall so her feet wouldn't be visible. The floor was white with green tiles; everything was neat and sterile. "Wow, so that's what chick bathrooms look like," I murmured to Wufei. "I'm disappointed. I figured there'd be a mini-theatre or something." I grinned at him, but he didn't smile back. 

While Wufei poked his head out into the hall, I checked my watch. I didn't really need to - I had a great internal clock - but it never hurt to double check. We still had over two hours, we were doing great. All we had to do was reach the server room, and then the building would belong to us. Well, me really, but Wufei was my partner and I believed in sharing my megalomania. 

The halls were silent once more as we made our way through the last leg of our journey to the server room. It had another electro-magnetic lock on it that I defeated just like the first. I let Wufei open the door again. When he signaled to me that things were all clear, I hurried in and made a beeline for the server stacks in the middle of the room. The lighting was dim; they had this room on power save as well, it seemed. Maybe the sysadmin was off raiding a vending machine or something. My footsteps sounded loud on the white, anti-static tiles. 

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I fished my tools out of my pocket. I felt like someone had just run an ice cold finger up my spine. Something was wrong. If nothing else, the eerie silence was getting to me; the only sounds were Wufei's quiet movements as he did a perimeter of the room, looking for traps or security devices we had missed. Either this lab had the quietest servers I'd ever encountered in my life, or... 

Fuck delicacy. I shoved my lock picking kit to one side and grabbed my knife again. I jammed the point into a hairline crack in the front of the cabinet and gave it a sharp twist. The pathetic excuse for the lock snapped like dry pasta and the door to the cabinet opened, revealing... 

Nothing. A few loose wires and some dust, but no servers. Not even a fucking LAN cable. Oh shit. 

"Duo!" 

I jerked to my feet, kicking my tool pouch. Tiny screw drivers and alan wrenches scattered across the floor like metal confetti. "Wu, we have a problem," I started, stepping around the cabinet so I could see him. He stood at one end of the room, which we hadn't been able to see clearly from the door because the cabinets had been in the way. The walls there were covered with mirror, from floor to ceiling. 

Wufei pointed at them. "Mirror, Duo. I've looked at them closely now... the walls behind them are solid, they're not one way glass. I don't know why they would be here, and this worries me." 

I didn't hear him, not really. I was too busy staring at the mirrors as my skin felt like it was trying to crawl off my body. Each mirror was a square pane, taller than me, with a thin black frame. They surrounded Wufei on three sides, reflecting him back and forth into infinity. Except that there was a movement there, something that didn't belong to Wufei. 

A ragged edge of black seemed to flow from the frame, peeping into each mirror. The black edge grew, blowing as if on an invisible breeze toward the center of the mirror. Then a figure, shrouded from head to toe stepped into the mirror, reflected from nothing. It was repeated in each mirror. 

This was not happening. This had to be some kind of fucked up dream. 

The figure reached a black-gloved hand into its sleeve and drew forth the blue-black feather of a raven. 

"WUFEI!" Cold that burned through my soul hit me in a wave. 

The light flickered into darkness, leaving only a ghostly blue glow from the dummy terminal monitors. 

As if he were trapped in molasses, Wufei began to turn, drawing his sword. 

A scream, the shriek of something terrible begging for death, sliced through my mind. 

The mirrors exploded. 

Wufei ducked, covering his head with his arms as he was enveloped in a blizzard of silver glass shards. Eight black figures stepped down on to the floor as the mirrors rained down. 

Everything clicked into place in an instant. I yanked my gun from its holster, took careful aim at the nearest one's head, and fired. "Not on my watch, you murdering fucks!" I shouted. 

My shot was true; the thing went down with an all too human and all too female scream. 

That sure got everyone's attention. 

Wufei jumped to his feet, streaming blood from a myriad of cuts on his arms. His shirt and pants were shredded, his face was set and grim. He only stopped long enough to yell, "Duo, abort!" before he lunged at the closest Cloak, taking an overhand swing at it. The Cloak dodged faster than a human should have been able to, and batted the sword aside with a metallic clang. It said a lot about Wufei's strength that he managed to hold on to it. 

So they were wearing some sort of armor. I'd have to remember that central mass shots would probably be useless, and that made my job a lot harder. "Like hell I will!" I shouted back at Wufei, and then they were on me. 

They came like ghosts, absolutely silent. I fired at one, but another grabbed my arm and yanked, spinning me. The touch burned like cold fire, and I bit into my lip, barely holding in a shriek of pain. The taste of copper flooded my mouth. I let go of my gun without a fight, more concerned with freeing my hand then anything else. I had knives I could use; close range wasn't my thing, but I didn't have a choice. 

I freed myself as two more dove in; I managed to dodge, slipping behind one of the others as I yanked my knives out from their sheathes. I took a stab at the unprotected back of the Cloak in front of me. The knife point skittered across armor like I'd guessed it would, tearing an enormous hole in the black shroud and yanking its hood back. Glints of silver from the armor caught my eye. My target whipped around and tried to disarm me, but I danced back, trying to find a better defensive position. It was a woman, pale and gaunt with black hair in oiled ringlet. Tattoos that moved like a thing living covered her face, forming into patterns that made my eyes itch and burn. 

I'd seen tattoos like that before - the old witch in the department store when Heero was still randomly setting things on fire with that power of his. This did not bode well. 

She lunged at me again and I slashed at her face. Only an undignified jerk to the side saved her nose. 

One of her compatriots slammed her shoulder into me, almost knocking me over and throwing me into the arms of another anonymous Cloak. It locked an arm around my throat and tried to choke me. No dice. I slammed my foot down on its instep and was free in an instant. I'd been hoping they hadn't thought to put armor on their feet. 

I dodged again and snap kicked someone in the stomach. It hurt my foot but drove him back, granting me a moment to regroup. I could tell from the noise near the wall that Wufei was still fighting the good fight. Great, since it meant he was still alive, bad because it meant he probably wasn't winning. Which meant I was really fucked, since I wasn't even half the fighter he was. 

While I was trying to fend off two Cloaks and work my way toward Wufei, another landed a kick in the small of my back and I went sprawling. Only divine intervention kept me from being skewered on one of my own knives. 

Somehow, I produced a snake-twist and flipped onto my back, just in time to get one of my arms stepped on, the other grabbed by one of those burning hands. A third Cloak bent over me as I frantically struggled, reaching into its sleeve and drawing out a capped syringe. 

Oh hell no! I twisted my wrist and yanked, freeing my right hand. A red, burned welt was already visible on my wrist. With desperate strength and a lot more flexibility than I thought I had, I drove the knife up, under the hood of the one leaned over me, and felt it bite deep. With a burbling gasp, the Cloak fell over, right on top of me. I could barely move under the weight, and the absolute cold radiating from it sent my nerves screaming for mercy. 

Even better. I was nose to nose with the now dead woman. Her hair was bone white and in a crew cut. Blood ran freely from her mouth and nose, soaking into my shirt as she stared into me with fishy blue eyes. The tattoos on her face shriveled like a worm on a hot sidewalk. 

I didn't get to enjoy the view for long. Someone knelt down on my left arm, and the sharp line of a needle got stabbed into my triceps. I let out my fear and frustration in the loudest scream I'd ever produced in my life. A moment later, needle and knee were gone, and in a fit of insane strength, I shoved the corpse off of me. 

My arm was on fire, every vein outlined in cold agony. I struggled to my feet and stumbled away, clutching my arm and frantically searching the floor for my gun. The Cloaks that surrounded me turned their backs and walked toward the continuing fight with Wufei. 

I almost slipped on my gun when I stepped on it, but I didn't really care. The world felt like it was beginning to bend and twist around me as I bent to pick it up. My fingers didn't seem to want to work properly; I'd never had to concentrate so hard. The gun weighed about eleven hundred tons, but I leveled it at the group of Cloaks, and struggled to pull back the trigger. The sound of the shot stretched out until it was like a peel of thunder; the kick of the gun knocked it from my hand and it went clattering to the floor again. 

But the most important was the blood I suddenly saw blossom from the head of one of those bitches. At least I'd done something. 

My knees gave way and I crashed to the floor as the creeping fire reached my heart and began licking at my spine, toward my brain. "Wufei," I croaked, "Run. Get out. Run..." The words were hopelessly slurred. Nothing seemed to work as I crumpled into an untidy heap. Cold fingers sank into my brain, and for a minute, it was agony. Then the best orgasm I'd ever had in my life exploded through me, running from the ends of my hair to my toenails. The world turned infra red, then melted into a puddle that faded to black. 

I couldn't help but wonder as consciousness slid away in a wave of euphoria, if my eye was going to end up floating in a jar somewhere. 

Not that I cared as long as it felt this good... 


	10. Chapter 10

Anax Tristis 10 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 10_

To say I felt like ass when I woke up was kind of like saying that Godzilla was an itty bitty-lizard. My mouth tasted like something had crawled in there to die of amoebic dysentery, and my head and stomach were in loud agreement that this could quite possibly a worse hangover than the time Quatre and I had decided that splitting a fifth of rum on an empty stomach would be a great idea. 

And I hadn't even opened my eyes yet. And you know what? I really didn't want to, either. 

I was laying face down on metal decking of some sort, and that was never a good sign. It felt like I'd gotten there non-too-gently. I was one massive bruise, and my nose felt stiff and swollen, so there was a good chance I'd bled all over the place too. Cautiously, I cracked an eye open. It was pretty dark out there; I had enough light to sit by, but only barely. Not that I was complaining, since bright light would have caused my head to pop like an overripe grape. 

I attempted to sit up, focusing on the gunmetal grey floor so my stomach wouldn't get any more upset. Except it didn't work quite like I was trying for; my muscles weren't listening too well to my brain. As an added bonus, it was like someone had suddenly shoved the strength of the Incredible Hulk into me. I flung myself backwards and hit a set of solid metal bars behind me, hard enough that I swear my teeth rattled. "Ow...Fuck!" 

Just when you thought your day couldn't suck any more... 

"Take your time, don't try to move fast. You'll hurt yourself." A man said. His voice was deep and probably would have been pretty sexy if he hadn't sounded like he'd been doing a lot of screaming recently. 

For once in my life, I took advice and turned slowly, until I was facing the metal bars I'd hit. From what I could see, I was stuck in a glorified birdcage made of stainless steel bars thicker than my arm. There was another cage opposite me, where the man who had spoken leaned back against the cage with his arms rested on his bent knees. He was gaunt and pale; I could count all of his ribs, though he also still had some decent muscle standing out on his arms. His only nod to decency was a pair of incredibly ragged and dirty shorts that at some point may have been white pants. 

And below...nothing. The cages hung from a ceiling lost in the darkness by means of thick chains, and if there was a floor, I sure as hell couldn't see it. "Oh shit..." I said. No words I knew could really describe it. 

"You'll get...used to it eventually. I seem to have," the man said. He sounded almost cheerful. 

I turned my head carefully. There was another cage nearby. It was empty. "Where's Wufei?" I demanded. 

"Probably still in the lab. He must have been more interesting than you. They'll bring him here eventually if they don't outright kill him." 

"How? How can you be so certain?" I grabbed the bars, since I didn't have long enough arms to grab him, which was what I really wanted to do. 

He turned to look at me. He had long, blonde hair that would have been beautiful if it had been well cared for. It hung in ragged, stringy locks over his face. "I've been through it myself, several times. And there have been others. Yasahiro, Miki, Tomoyo, Gloria, Nevin, and Mike, who delivered pizza to the wrong building." He smiled, and it was an almost painful expression. "I hope you stick around. Most of the company I get disappears quickly." 

"You're not giving me much hope here, buddy." I pressed my face against the bars. They were cold, which was rather soothing to the headache. 

"Hope dies," he said. "That's about all I can remember any more." 

"Wow, I think you just beat out Heero on the pessimism department." 

"What?" 

"Nothing, just talking to myself. You have a name, Mr. Cheerful?" I couldn't help but glance over at the empty cage. Damnit, where did they have Wufei? 

It seemed to take him a couple minutes to remember it. "Milliard. That's my name. Milliard." 

"Yeah, you have been here for a while," I said, pulling my mouth into a smile I didn't feel. 

"So it would seem." 

"It's bad when you've been alone long enough that you have a hard time remembering who you are. Try talking to yourself. I swear, it helps." 

I shifted, and the exaggerated movement made me slam my head against the bars. "Mother fucking..." 

"Like I said, keep your movements slow. You'll get used to it, and at first it'll even fade a little. At least until the next round." 

"I don't understand, Milliard. What are you talking about?" 

"The drugs." He examined his arm for a moment as if it were fascinating. "I'm not quite certain what they are, or what their intention is, but yes... the drugs." 

I rubbed my own arm. There was a tender spot where they'd stuck me with the needle. "What's this going to do to me? What has it done to you?" 

There was a loud click, and a whoosh. A rectangle of eye hurting white light appeared - a door opening. 

Milliard sounded truly regretful. "You'll find out soon enough." 

All I could really make out in the brightness was a couple of shadowy figures approaching, dragging a bundle between them. It took a lot of squinting, but as they entered the room, I realized that it was two women like the ones that had attacked me, nasty tattoos and all, dragging Wufei between them. 

"Wufei!" I couldn't help it, I yelled his name. It was good to see him alive, relatively speaking. At least I sure as hell hoped he was alive. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Milliard sit up, pressing near the bars. There was a strange, animalistic snarl on his face, and an odd sound coming from him that it took me a moment to recognize as a growl. 

The two women stopped at the edge of the floor, too far away for me to have even the hallucination of reaching them. A third woman walked in the door, pulling a small box from the sleeve of her robes. 

"Hey, you! Hey, I'm talking to you here!" I yelled. They ignored me. 

"Don't..." Milliard whispered. 

The woman held out the box and pressed a button on it. Must have been a remote control, because the empty cage glided toward them, stopping at the floor. Wufei got tossed inside like a sack of moldy potatoes and then it was sent back to its original place. 

The woman turned toward me and suddenly my cage was gliding forward. So I did the only thing I could, scooting to the rear. It didn't help much, but I didn't want to be anywhere near these things unless I had a gun. 

The woman stepped forward as the cage stopped. "You. Stick your left arm out of the cage." 

I crossed my arms. "You," I mimicked, getting her inflections down on the first try even, "go choke on a rhinoceros dick." 

She didn't even blink. "The choice is yours. Hard or easy, you will do as you are told." 

"Lady, I don't even do what my teachers tell me, and I _like_ most of them. Ugly, psychotic hags? Oh fuck no." 

"Your choice is made." She said, and reached into her sleeve again, drawing forth something sickeningly familiar: the feather of a raven. My teeth began to chatter and my breath misted as I curled up against the cold that suddenly crashed down on me from all directions. No one seemed to feel it but me. That finally got a reaction; vague surprise, in the form of a raised eyebrow. "You know what this is?" 

"Not exactly, but I know I don't like it." 

She smiled, and I swear the tattoos on her face wiggled, just a little, like a happy leech. "Good." 

I had a few seconds to brace myself for an attack; she bowed her head and began to whisper a stream of sibilant syllables, making gestures with her other hand. I reached in to that special place within, knowing it was my only hope against what I was about to get hit with. It must have been night outside still; the power was eager and leapt to my call. I could almost imagine my hands beginning to glow, a sort of violet that sucked at the air and hurt the eyes. It wasn't really a visible thing, more the saturation of energy made my blood sing in my veins as I held my hands out in front of me, warding off the gathering storm. 

The woman pointed at me, palm open, and then closed her fingers in a tight fist. The cold struck at me in a screaming wave. 

I almost laughed. Now that I was prepared, it was nothing. It washed around me like water breaking over a rock. Even if the cold surrounding me made gooseflesh spring up on my arms, it couldn't really touch me. 

Just standing against it wasn't enough; the power flowing through me wanted more, as did I. Slowly, I spread my hands apart, widening the rift in the cold and forcing it further away from me. 

It popped like a soap bubble. The cold disappeared and I stood, surrounded by the warm darkness, so strong now that it tasted like blood in my mouth. I'd never felt so good before. Something dark inside me smiled, and I let the grin creep on to my face. 

The woman stumbled. She looked up, a snarl on her face, framed by now writhing tattoos. "**Qatarche**!" she screamed. 

The two others that had been standing by stepped forward, bringing out their own feathers. They began to whisper in unison, and my smile vanished. The gathering wave of power on their side made my hair just about stand on end. 

They brought it down on me like a twenty-five pound maul. I didn't have a chance; something broke inside me, letting out an angry shriek. 

I crashed to the metal floor, blood streaming from my eyes. Every nerve ending was on fire, but with the frozen cold of liquid nitrogen. I wanted to scream my agony out to the black ceiling, but I could barely even breathe. I was pinned like a butterfly, unable to even blink. 

I didn't feel their hands; I couldn't feel anything through the unending pain. They yanked me out of the cage and dumped me unceremoniously on the floor. The two lackeys continued to whisper, and it blended in my mind into the hiss of an angry snake. It was somehow familiar, and anger stirred deep in my belly. 

The woman drew blood from my arm, then produced a syringe from the never-ending wonder sleeves. It had a malevolent glitter to it as she held it up to the light. "So where did you learn that little trick, I wonder?" She purred. "We shall have to schedule you for some tests." 

The simple, quick pain of the needle plunging into my muscle was something of a relief. It spread its own particular brand of fire through me, chasing the cold away and leaving nothing but euphoria in its wake. As they dumped me back into my cage, I couldn't have moved even if I'd wanted to. In my mind, I was flying. 

I don't know how much time passed; colors wheeled across my vision, and every breath made me feel like I was taking in the universe. I played with air molecules in my mind, and composed poetry with frozen strings of wind. But slowly, dimly, I became aware that Milliard was talking to me, his voice calm and steady. 

"...drugs," he said, "this is was they do to you. They make you feel as if you could run forever, then keep you in a cage. They give you the ability to taste the wind where the air is only stale. And when it fades..." he drew in a shuddering breath, "the pain is a needle through every cell in your body. And even that cannot compare to the need to feel... it... again." 

Slowly, I sat up. My muscles jumped and twitched like they didn't belong to me. I felt like rubber. My eyes were gummy with dried blood. I tried to scrape it away from my eyelashes with limited success; my fingers weren't moving the way I wanted them to. "What are they doing to us, Milliard?" 

He shook his head. "What they've already done to me; make you into something no longer human." 

I leaned against the cold metal bars. The sensation sent shards of pleasure shooting through me. "Fuck them... I never did drugs when I was on the street. Fuck them..." My breath came in heavy gasps. I think I was trying not to cry. 

A thready moan reminded me of what the drug had driven from my mind. "Wufei!" Even though I knew in the rational part of my mind that there was no way I could squeeze through the bars and even if I could, I'd probably fall to my death, that didn't stop me from trying. Wufei was in trouble, more trouble than me. The rational part of my mind could go fuck itself. 

Wufei was still sprawled across the floor of his cage in a way that made my joints ache with sympathy. He was stripped down to his pants, showing every bruise, cut, and old scar that decorated his arms and back. He'd seen a lot of action. Slowly, he rolled over. His hair was stuck to his face with sweat and blood, and there was a neat line of burned circles on his chest. "Duo?" he whispered, his voice ragged. 

"I'm here, man. Are you okay?" The minute the question passed my lips, I wanted to slap myself. Instead, I laughed. 

Inch by painstaking inch, he pulled himself up until he was sitting. He leaned back against the bars, his eyes shut tightly. "You know, Duo, considering how much that question annoys you..." 

"I know, I know. Sorry man. I guess I don't get to bitch about it any more." It was hard to figure out what to say next. I mean, it wasn't like we could chat about the weather, and 'Hey, so how is being some sort of fucked-up lab experiment working out for you?' was just tacky. "Is there something wrong with your eyes, Wu?" 

"I'm not sure," he said after a pause that made me wonder if he'd passed out. "I'm... afraid... to open my eyes. Before, it was too bright. Everything was. I think I may go blind." 

Milliard spoke up, which was just as well since there was really nothing I could say. "It's safe to look. They keep it pitch black in here, so there is no danger." 

"Who is that, Duo?" Wufei asked. 

"Milliard, a fellow inmate. He's been here a while. And what the hell do you mean it's pitch black? I can see just fine!" I demanded, ending with a glare. 

Milliard chuckled. "Another side effect of the drug they inundate us with. Perhaps the only somewhat beneficial one. There is nothing we cannot see in the darkness." He leaned forward so he could get a better look at Wufei. "The choice whether to trust my words is yours, but I doubt you can keep your eyes shut for whatever length is left of your life." 

Slowly, Wufei opened his eyes. He seemed pretty surprised that his head didn't pop or something. I let him take a long survey of his surroundings without comment. When he turned to face Milliard, he recoiled. 

"Well, isn't that interesting." Milliard said. 

"What?" I asked. 

"He still has both of his eyes. I've never seen anyone come out of the lab like that before." Milliard looked up. He drew his hair back from his face, and for the first time, I got a clear look. He would have been really handsome were his face not lined with pain and fatigue, stained with dirt and blood. It was his eyes that fascinated me, though. Both were nearly the same color, a sharp, icy blue. But one had a normal, round pupil, and the other was slitted like a cat's. 

Oh shit. I recognized that all too well. I had to look away and calm myself, or I would have puked right there. Well, we knew what had happened to Angelo's eye now. 

Maybe Wufei didn't notice, didn't make the connection, or plain didn't care. He seemed totally unfazed. "When they were... examining me, they said that they'd never seen anything like me before. That I already carried a different... virus that they wished to cultivate." 

"A virus. I've never heard them say anything about it before. The plot thickens." Milliard snorted. "That must be why they check our blood daily. Tracking viral load or something similar. Perhaps we're to be the first victims of the next plague." 

"God, don't say that. I don't want to live to see another plague..." I moaned. Not again. I couldn't let it happen again. 

"I doubt you will." Milliard said. "Unless you are like me, and they succeed in... changing you." 

"Changing us into what, Milliard?" 

He stared at his hands for a long time as if they didn't belong to him, flexing his fingers one at a time. Then he curled his long frame into a ball, resting his head on his knees. "You'll find out soon enough, if you're unlucky," was his only reply. Try as we might, neither of us could get him to say anything more. 


	11. Chapter 11

Anax Tristis  
_ Chapter 11_

We slept fitfully after Wufei went through the same routine with the cage that I had, reaching the same conclusion; we had no way out. The metal floor was uncomfortable to say the least, but after our keepers came back to give us each another injection (after thoroughly beating me and Wu down) I headed straight for unconsciousness as if rocket propelled. 

The drugs made my dreams strange and incoherent. I ran, but to or from what, I didn't know. I only ran and ran and ran, with the scent of moonlight sharp in my throat and the sound of blood in my ears. 

Cold hands grabbing my arms and legs woke me up. I tried to struggle, but my muscles felt like water. The faces of the women, horrible tattoos and all, hovered over me as they strapped me down to a bed, so tightly that I couldn't have moved even if my body had been responding to me. 

One of the women leaned down and smiled at me, then kissed me on the forehead. I tried to jerk away, unsuccessfully. "No chances on you, strange one," she said. 

They wheeled me out into a corridor, bright and white. Even with the drug's effects fading, the light was like daggers in my eyes. I shut them as tightly as I could. Pained tears trailed down the sides of my head. The constant movement of the bed made me ill; I clenched my teeth against the feeling. I refused to allow even one more indignity. 

The death march lasted a thoroughly nauseating eternity. We went up an elevator and turned more corners than I could count in my present mental state. Then there was the whoosh of doors opening, and my nose was assaulted by the smell of antiseptic and blood. My stomach tried to heave and I told it to shut the fuck up. 

"What have you brought me today?" a man asked. 

"Subject 226-71, Doctor," the ringleader said. "The one you asked to see due to the low viral load." 

"Ah yes," he said, "a very strange case. I haven't seen anything like it since we started this series." His voice was deep and warm, with only the faintest hint of an accent. It was the kind of voice you expected from an English Professor or a host for National Geographic, not a mad scientist. 

I risked opening my eyes a crack, trying to see him. He was tall, at least six feet, and wore powder blue surgical scrubs. His hair was black and neatly cut. When he bent down to examine me, the resemblance was unmistakable; this had to be Hilde's dad. 

My mouth to brain connection must have been shorting out badly. Without meaning to, I whispered Hilde's name. 

That got a vague sort of bemused attention from him, a raise of the eyebrow. "Have you seen my daughter recently? Do tell. She and I have a great deal to discuss." 

I glanced around the lab with watering eyes, noting the rows of jars, the strange machines, the vials of drugs. "Fuck yourself," I whispered. I didn't know what they were supposedly going to discuss, but I would be good money it would involve needles and cages. What a sicko. 

"Willful children," Dr. Schbeiker mused as he pulled on a latex glove with a snap. "They never appreciate the gifts their parents have to offer." On went the other glove. "I hold in my hands the means that will allow you to join a superior generation, and you - and she - would squander it." He bent over me and pried my left eyelid open, examining my eye with a slight frown. I'd been able to look around with my eyes only open a slit; the sudden influx of light hurt horribly and made me jerk against the restraints. "I think this will be a decent match of sample 62G. Fetch it, please." 

"Yes, Doctor," said a woman I couldn't see. The doors swished open, then shut. 

"What I would really like to know is where you've picked up the resistance to the only virus I've ever run across with a higher infection rate than Ebola. Any strange drugs, odd foods you regularly eat?" 

My only response was to shut my eyes tightly. 

He was unfazed. "It will come out eventually; it always does. There is no escaping from a place that destiny herself has set you. Are you left eye dominant?" 

The abrupt switch shocked me into answering. "Yes." 

There was a soft metallic clink, and then another. My curiosity got the better of me, and I peered over toward the source of the sound. Dr. Schbeiker was standing over a metal tray, picking up scalpels one at a time, inspecting them, and then setting them back down. "Pity," he said as if it weren't at all, "but you'll adjust eventually. Sacrifice in the face of progress." 

That was when the fear struck me, down through the marrow of my bones. I jerked against the restraints, but they'd been thorough when they tied me down; there was no give at all. I'd seen a lot of scary shit in my life, including an insane military commander or three, and a vampire that was well over a thousand years old and so powerful that being near him was like listening to God breathe. And none of that touched the fear I felt now. Because Dr. Schbeiker was human, and completely, terrifyingly sane. 

I'd never met a man like him before, and there'd been none yet in my lifetime. The last of his ilk that had graced the face of the planet had committed genocide on one side and vaporized entire cities on the other. An insane man could be lead in circles or tripped into his own madness. A sane man like this couldn't be talked around or tricked. I was fucked. 

"...and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..." I whispered. 

Dr. Schbeiker set the scalpel he was inspecting down. "Evil is relative. The evil done to one leads to the good of the whole. The practice of necessary evil is not one that most have the moral strength to encompass." 

The door swished open again, and the clack of high heels approached the good doctor. A woman in a white nurse's uniform stepped into my field of view, holding a glass tube in her hands. In the tube floated an eye. Its iris was wolf amber. 

I yanked my hands against the restraints ineffectually. If they hadn't been soft restraints, I would have probably started bleeding. I didn't even get that much satisfaction. I knew where this was going as sure as if someone had handed me a script, and there wasn't a fucking thing I could do about it. When I tried to reach my inner power, it was sluggish and unresponsive. 

Even worse, that made the woman with the tattoos on her face walk over to me. She was twirling the raven feather between her fingers. "I suggest that you don't," she said. 

I shook my head and looked away from her, still flexing my hands. The nurse was helping Dr. Schbeiker into a surgical gown, and pulled a second pair of gloves over his first. Last, she tied a mask on him, then began pulling her own getup on. Dr. Schbeiker walked over to me, and peered down into my eye again. 

"I'm afraid that in order for the nerve patch to take properly, you will have to be conscious. I think you are due for another injection, however, and that should deaden the pain sufficiently," he said. Before he'd even finished, the sharp line of a needle sank into my arm, and the familiar burning began to flow up my veins. 

"Please," I tried, "you don't have to do this." 

"On the contrary, progress is quite necessary," Dr. Schbeiker said, then looked up. "Begin voice recording. Ocular placement procedure for subject 226-71..." 

My tongue felt like a foreign body in my mouth, but I managed to interrupt him, putting the last of my will into speech. "I... have a name. Duo. My name... is Duo." 

He spared me a glance. "I'm afraid not any longer," was his only answer. 

I struggled to stay conscious, to think at all as a warm pool of pleasure and euphoria sucked at the edges of my mind. The burning had been replaced with warmth, the feeling that I could fly, that I could run to the moon and howl my joy to the stars. My vision blurred until I all I could see was an indistinct blue shape and a shining blot, coming closer and closer to my eye. 

Dimly, I heard the doors swish open. "What do you think you're doing?" A woman demanded. 

That voice...it was familiar. The synapses in my brain fired sluggishly, pulling up a memory. A department store, a woman with blue tattoos on her face and white, sightless eyes. A thready giggle escaped my lips. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse... 

"Ocular placement, Miss Kiria. For some reason I have yet to fathom, this subject is fighting off the virus with shocking efficiency. His load in the last sample might as well have been zero." 

Footsteps approached, and the silver blot disappeared. Somehow, I'd managed to clench my hands into fists. My fingers relaxed one by one. 

"Either the team I left here is incompetent, or they have committed a lie of omission. Either way, they will be punished," Kiria said. "You could replace every drop of his blood, and he would still destroy the virus. His body is incapable of harboring anything so closely linked to life. He is a necromancer, Dr. Schbeiker." 

I couldn't make out Schbeiker's face, but the look of pained disbelief was all too easy to imagine. "Indeed." 

The woman that had brought me to the room spoke, her voice frantic. "High One, we didn't know..." 

"Silence!" Kiria snapped. "You will accept your punishment for your foolishness without complaint. Be glad that he was not damaged, or I would see that you suffered the same." Her tone became quite a bit sweeter when she addressed Dr. Schbeiker again. "I do not wish to see the samples we have so painstakingly collected for you put to waste on this one." 

"Then what do you propose we do with this subject?" Dr. Schbeiker asked. 

"Leave him in containment and keep him well drugged. I will take him off your hands eventually, once the experiment has concluded. Until then, it will be interesting to see if we can engineer the virus so that it will take hold in him, don't you think?" 

"True; we may encounter more like him in the general population. A hardier virus might be the way to go." 

Kiria looked down on me. Her face was a blur, but my memory supplied the missing details easily. "Well, Mr. Maxwell, fancy meeting you under such circumstances. I think this is a suitable beginning to your punishment, don't you?" 

I tried to answer her, but it came out as an incoherent mutter. 

"Well, I suppose it's nice to know that at least the important portions of the drug effect you. Dr. Schbeiker, I will take this one back to his holding cell." 

"Do what you like, Miss Kiria," Dr. Schbeiker said. He sounded downright cranky. "But please look in to finding more viable subjects for me. Of our current three, only one has value for the actual experiment. The two new ones are anomalies, even if it's rather fascinating to acquire a new virus culture." 

"We will see to it." 

My bed began to move, back the way I had come. Relief overwhelmed me, sucking me down into the embrace of the drug. I was forced back up for a gasp of reality in the elevator when Kiria grabbed the loose skin of my arm and gave it a nasty twist. 

"Now," she said, "you will listen to me. I wish for you to appreciate what you, in your own special way, have helped to bring about." 

"No..." I muttered. 

"Oh, but yes. You are aware of the Master of Tokyo's plan to bring us into the light of the world. We cannot hope to stop it at this point; you've helped him too much, however inadvertently. Thus, like all good puppets, you will be the author of your own misery even as his hands jerk your strings." She laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. "His insane fantasy is that there will be peace between all races on the earth, that equality will be found with him at the helm. How one so old can be so foolish is beyond me. No, there will be war, long and bloody. As powerful as we are, we're far outnumbered. I cannot give people the talent that would make them one of us, and the vampires are useless during the day, and even at night against this city's master. So we will create our own army, of those with strength but easily controlled minds. Soldiers that are inhumanly strong by day, and inhuman at night." 

I moaned, clenching my hands again. I didn't want to hear this. I didn't want to know. 

"Werewolves. Weretigers. Wererats. An army of our own to ensure we come out on top. And what better way to bring this about then allow our soldiers to create themselves with drugs. The streets will run with our creatures." She smoothed my hair back with one hand. "You should be relieved to hear this, boy. You are, after all, one of us." 

I twitched my head. It was the best I could do under the circumstances. "Never..." 

She laughed again, and the sound pierced my ears. The room was becoming progressively brighter, and I shut my eyes tightly before it could reach a point of pain. "You will face your punishment, Duo. And then you will understand your place and where you shall stand." 

We went through a set of doors, into blessed darkness. Rough hands yanked the restraints off and lifted me up, then dumped me onto the metal floor of my cage. 

"Think when you are able." Kiria said. "Your denial of your self will end; realize what you are. You will never live a normal life, and you will never stand with mortals again." Her voice seemed to wander across a thousand discordant pitches as the last of my will drained away and I fell completely into the stupor of the drug. 

Back into the dreams. 


	12. Chapter 12

Anax Tristis 12 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 12_

I never really came back up to reality after that. Every time the euphoria began to fade, like clockwork the cloaked women would appear, and there would be more needles, more drugs. It was the only way we had of gauging time. Perhaps Milliard and Wufei did, drawing lines on their cage floors like prisoners in old movies. I never knew. 

Sometimes they would talk to me, but their voices would fade into a melody I couldn't make out. I only caught a word here or there. Too soon, they began to fade from my mind; maybe they were dreams and I was alone. Maybe I was still back on my home colony at L2, shaking with fever and waiting to succumb to the plague. Maybe I was their mad hallucination, and I didn't exist at all. 

All that mattered was the fire in my veins. I gave up trying to fight it, or perhaps it destroyed my will entirely. It made the cage and the darkness fade away, and I felt like I could run and run, forever. 

A worm of Need began to grow in my belly, getting bigger with each swift pain of injection. The only time I could feel metal decking beneath my cheek was when the drug faded and the worm-called-Need began to gnaw, setting my joints and muscles on fire, curling my fingers into tight fists that cut away at my palms with sharp and ragged fingernails. I scrabbled at the floor and screamed my agony. 

And then the drug would come, and I would go crawling to the front of my cage, arm bared to receive the blessing. 

My nose began bleeding, every time they gave me the drugs. It caused alarm at first - at least I was fairly certain it did - and they hauled the good doctor in to look at me, until he declared that it was a spike in blood pressure and quite acceptable. After that, no one paid it notice except to hold me down and half-heartedly wipe me off with a damp cloth every now and then. 

I would sit still in my cage, reveling in the sound of my own breath, of being able to listen to the heartbeats of Milliard and Wufei. Blood would drip from my nose, pat pat pat, and I thought I could see the tiny cells in each drop. It was like my own fascinating impressionistic art. 

And I would dream. 

"Did you know, Milliard," I said, carefully forming each word around my sluggish tongue. The words seemed to print themselves into the air in front of me. 

"Know what, Duo?" He asked. He was as calm as ever, but there was a strange note of worry in his voice. And Wufei? Where was Wufei? 

"Wu..." I muttered. 

"They took him into the lab for another round. He's been gone for a while." 

I stared at my hands and tried to think of any reply at all. "Can't kill him yet." 

"I hope not." 

What had I been saying? I... eye. I looked up. "I know where that eye came from," I blurted out. 

Milliard jerked as if I'd slapped him. "What?" 

"The eye... blue kitty eyes. Belonged to a guy named... Angelo. Has a brother named Tony. Friends of mine. At least Tony is." 

"Why are you telling me this, Duo?" He was angry now. Why was he angry? I could smell it on his breath. 

"Angelo was a real prick. Do you see things in prick vision now?" 

Milliard surged to the front of his cage, reaching toward me with clawed fingers. I think he would have tried to strangle me if I'd been within reach. "Why? WHY DID YOU TELL ME?" 

"Because... I saw him. He fought the good fight. Like a tiger. And he was a tiger. Maybe he'll make you strong... so... so you can get the hell out..." I slumped toward the floor, every last bit of my energy gone. "Run, Milliard. Run far away." 

A metallic sound, his fists striking the floor. "I can't!" 

"Then we'll all die together like birds of a feather..." 

Dreams. 

He was screaming and he wouldn't stop. Maybe he couldn't stop. His voice was fading, because his throat was raw, and all he managed now were breathy moans. 

And it wasn't me. 

Slowly, I dragged myself from the dream, from running and running for all eternity between the stars. Because if he was screaming, I needed to be there. I needed to do something. 

"Wufei..." I murmured, peeling my face away from the floor. It was stuck with dried blood that had run from my nose. My skin was stiff with it all, and my lips cracked when I talked. 

He didn't stop screaming. Maybe he couldn't hear me. 

Slowly, inch by inch, I dragged myself across the three miles of floor to the edge of my cage. "Wufei..." 

He was writhing, curled in a ball of agony. Every now and then his head would jerk and strike the floor. His hands were tensed into claws. 

I clenched my hands around the bars, trying to hold myself in the present and fight off the dream. "Goddamnit, Wufei, come on!" 

Wufei curled into a ball and spasmed, rolling to his stomach. He clawed at the floor, scrabbling against it with already broken and bleeding fingernails. The muscles on his back writhed like something was trying to burst forth from him, and he threw back his head and screamed again. 

I lunged forward, and somehow, things moved. I was close enough to grab his flailing hand with my own. It took five tries, because everything wavered like I was looking through water. His fingernails left bloody scratches on my hands, but I held on, locking my fingers around his. "Wufei, it's me. It's me..." 

He stopped for a moment, drawing in horrible, shuddering breaths. "Duo..." He whispered. 

"I'm here, Wufei. I'm here. I can't make it stop, but I'm here." 

His hand tightened around mine with almost bone crushing force. "It wants out, Duo. I don't know how much longer I can hold it." 

Tears were running down my cheeks, and I couldn't remember crying them. "Let it out, Wufei. You're killing yourself." 

He moaned, full of despair. "If I let it go, both of you will die. I can't control it. It'll be like before, destroying everything. Nothing will be left." 

The bars were cold against my forehead. I didn't have the strength to hold up my head any longer. "What is it, Wufei? What have they put in you?" 

"I... don't know. But it's always been there. It whispers in my dreams. I don't want it to wake up!" He jerked, and his head slammed on the floor again. 

The muscles of his hand squirmed, trying to rearrange themselves. He snarled twisted, trying to escape his own body. The texture of his skin changed, becoming cool and smooth, with the sharp edges of scales. 

The door opened, blinding me with the sudden influx of light. Wufei's hand was jerked from mine as his cage moved toward the light. "WUFEI!" I screamed. 

The door slammed shut, and there was darkness. 

And the dream. 

The sound of her breathing woke me with tiny threads of cold that crept on to my spine. I clawed my way up through the dream, almost sad to leave it behind. But someone was staring at me, I could feel it. 

I was sprawled on my back, my nose sealed shut with dried blood and my throat raw. All I had to do was open my eyes, slowly in case someone had let light into the room again. 

She hung upside down from the chain that suspended my cage, her feet locked around it and her arms free. Her face was turned toward me, pale and round like the moon. Her blue eyes were as sharp and cold as ever, and her white blonde hair hung in its braid, every strand tucked in and neat. 

"Tamlin..." I whispered. We hadn't had a cordial parting last time I ran across her. If she wanted to kill me, as helpless as I was, it wouldn't be an issue. I tried to reach within, to my power, and I encountered nothing but numbness. 

"Nothing you do will work now, Duo." She said, as if she'd read my mind. "They must have figured out what you are. Your cage is sealed with Rowan wood now; the lock contains a sprig. I can't touch it." She looked truly regretful. "I can't let you out." 

I laughed. It was dry and horrible. "Let me out? Why would you want to do a thing like that?" 

"Under orders, boy." She said, crossing her arms. "And perhaps, I feel sorry for you. No one should have to die like this." 

"That's it," I said. "I'm going to die." 

"If you continue to lay there like this, you will. And soon. Whatever they've injected you with is destroying you from the inside. You'll drown in your own blood soon." 

"You act like I have a choice." I shifted uncomfortably. Now that I had left the dream, I could feel the need beginning to gnaw at me with sharp teeth. 

She shook her head. "There's always a choice. For example, you could always commit suicide before they can kill you. It would be more pleasant, at least." 

I snorted, or tried to. "I can't. I made a promise." 

She slipped a little further down the chain, until her face was almost inches away from the bars. "In that case, your other option is to give up the wall of denial you've been using as a crutch for the past several years, and start believing in what you yourself have wrought." 

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Only because you don't want to believe it." She reached out and touched the bars in front of her, then jerked her hands back as if burned. "Damn." 

"What is it, then, if you have all the answers?" I demanded. This was getting annoying. 

"Heero." Tamlin said, her gaze boring in to me. "Call to him. He will hear you and come." 

I shook my head, letting it flop back and forth. "How can that be possible?" 

"He belongs to you. You made him, and he walks by your will. If you call, and you break through the handicap of your own disbelief, he will have no choice but to come." 

"That's insane. That's impossible." 

"And that's why it won't work until you let that go." 

The clank of the door lock being disengaged echoed through the room. Tamlin glanced up. "I have to leave now, or they will capture me. Remember the path I've shown you. Growing up enough to walk it is your own choice." 

Light flooded the room, and I shut my eyes tightly. They put Milliard in his cage first; I could hear them struggling to shove his limp form in. He was a lot heavier than either me or Wufei. Then my cage began to move, and I knew what was coming. 

Without any prompting from my mind, my body crawled to the near edge of the cage and held out an arm. I needed it, I needed the hunger to go away and the dream to come back. 

God help me, I needed it. 

The needle sunk into my flesh, and I sunk into the familiar fire and the wash of euphoria. 

The dream came again, and I was running, forever and ever through the stars. But this time, I admitted to myself what I'd been denying all along; that Heero and I had some kind of connection that didn't make sense in a rational world, and that it was because of what I'd done. 

And I was no longer running to run. I was running to find Heero, screaming out our danger to him. 

It was enough. It had to be. 

I ran and ran for eternity, until in the dream, I found him. He was like a ghost, a pale pillar of orange and yellow flame standing on the dark side of the moon. The colonies at L2 whirled around him like a halo. He must have gone there looking for me. 

I ran toward him, as fast as I could. The dream was beginning to fade, and I could feel the beginnings of the need in my belly, stirring. I didn't have much time, and I didn't know if I'd be able to find him again. 

Or even if I really had this time. But I wanted to believe, and perhaps that would make it true. It may have only been the cruel teasing of an insane bounty hunter, but I wanted to believe. 

In the dream, I had wings, soft and black. I wrapped them around me to protect my skin from his heat. Even from far away, I could feel it, living flame that danced across my skin. My nose was bleeding, regular drops falling away into the dark between stars. They shone like rubies before vanishing. "Lord of Light, are you there?" I asked. That was his name. It just was. 

The fire became bright and hot for a moment. It was the only answer I was going to get. I shut my eyes, but still the light hurt. I resisted the urge to put the flame out with my hands; it was within my power to do. But it would destroy me in the end; my own comfort was no reason to do it. 

"I don't have much time, so listen hard and remember my words. The Dragon and I are held in cages. We are dying. You have to find us. Bring the Healer and the Lord of Illusions. Call upon the leaches..." I swallowed hard and fell to my knees, so slowly. Beneath me, the ground moved, and I clutched my stomach, clenching my teeth against the pain. My wings shivered and shook, casting off black feathers. 

The fire began to flicker out. 

"Hurry..." I managed to grind out, before I felt the needle, and the burning. 

Then I was lost in the dream and running once more, back where I had started. The memories of what I had done disappeared like grains of sand that ran between my fingers. 

And there was only the dream. 


	13. Chapter 13

Anax Tristis 13 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 13_

The room shook, shattering the dream. 

Slowly, I peeled myself off of the floor, rubbing and pinching at my nose in a vain attempt to clear it enough to I could breathe normally. Most of the skin of my face was tacky with dried blood. Wufei and Milliard were already awake and up. 

"Is that... an earthquake?" I asked. My voice cooperated only after severe protest. Constant nosebleeds will do that to a guy. 

"I don't think so," Milliard said. "It didn't last long enough." 

The room shook again, harder, setting our cages swaying. I felt, rather than heard, the dull whump! That accompanied it. "Wait, I know that sound..." 

Wufei uncurled enough to look up, hope ragged in his eyes. "That was Heavyarms. I helped tune the missile launcher. I know that pitch." 

"Oh my God." I grabbed the bars with shaking hands. "The guys have come for us. I didn't think it could happen, but somehow..." 

"Heavyarms? The guys? What are you talking about?" Milliard asked. 

I turned toward him, grinning so widely that my already dry lips cracked. I really didn't care. "Believe it orr not, man, Wufei and I are two of the notorious Gundam pilots. Sounds like our buddies have finally gotten off their asses and come looking for us." I knew I shouldn't have said anything, but my heart was singing an irrational chorus of hope and joy that would have made Beethoven put down his music in despair. 

Besides, after you've been guinea pig with someone for a while, there aren't too many secrets left. 

Milliard stared at me for a long moment, his mismatched eyes wide with disbelief. Then he threw his head back and began to laugh like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard in his life. 

Whump! The room shook again, and still he laughed, clutching at his ribs. Maybe he was finally cracking. Or maybe he was just enjoying the feeling of laughter; none of us had gotten to laugh at all in such a long time. 

Slowly, he started to wind down, wiping at his eyes in between throaty chuckles. I quirked an eyebrow. "Care to let us in on the joke?" I asked. 

That set him off again. Between gales of laughter, he gasped out, "It's just too funny... Gundam pilots... right next to me... Oz's Lightning Count!" 

Wufei and I stared at him as if he'd started speaking Basque, then at each other, then back at him. Lightning Count? I'd only heard that name once before, in a news report... "No fucking way!" I yelled. "**You're** Zechs Merquise?" 

He somehow managed to stop laughing in an instant, smoothing his expression into cultured lines. "A pleasure to make the acquaintance of two such notorious terrorists. I hope you've been enjoying the lovely weather we've had." And then he was off again. 

I looked at Wufei. "You're not Treize in disguise, right?" 

"No." 

"Okay, just checking." 

The room shook again. It was the strongest tremor yet. The explosions were getting closer. "Milliard, get a fucking hold of yourself, okay?" I snapped. Amazingly enough, he did, except for the occasional snort that managed to leak out of his nose. I dropped my voice low, hoping that all of our previous yelling had gone unnoticed. "Look, either the guys are going to manage a flawless jailbreak - in which case we get to sit here and look pretty - or the lab techs are going to try to get us to a different location. If that happens, it's the ideal time to make a prison break. So we keep cool and keep watch. No one gets left behind on this one. We're all going to make it out." 

Wufei nodded, echoing. "No one left behind." 

I grinned at Milliard. "We'll deal with your shitty politics some other time." 

Surprisingly enough, he stayed serious. "There are quite a few things stronger than politics in this world." 

The lock to the main door clanked before I could answer, and we all sprawled down in our cages, playing possum. It might as well have been a well-rehearsed plan. Guess after you're with other guys for a while, you start sharing brain cells. I cracked an eye open so I could watch. When they opened the door, the light was painfully bright, but not blinding. The drug was already fading, then. 

I'd deal with that later. Like I had a choice. 

The witches filed in, feathers in hand. Dr. Schbeiker followed in their wake. It sent a stab of fear through me. Not good. Whispering their sibilant little cantrips, they flattened Wufei and then Milliard like a couple of toads under a tractor trailer. They brought them to the front for another injection of the drug, then shoved them into plastic crates that looked like large, glorified pet carriers. When both were out the door, they turned their attention to me. The gathering power misted my breath and made me shiver, but the expected blow of power never came. I had a hard time continuing my sleepy act. 

The rowan Tamlin had spoken of. Maybe it didn't just keep me locked in. Hot damn. 

I played dead, staying still and limp, as the room shook with the worst tremor yet. There was a crack like a gun shot, and tiles fell away from the ceiling, crashing down on the ledge only inches away from the witches. 

The ringleader looked at Schbeiker. "We are needed outside, now, if we want to buy any more time. He is subdued, you will be able to handle him. Tesra, stay." In a swish of black cloaks, she and all but one of the witches was gone. The remaining witch reeled me in. As my cage reached the platform, there was another whump, and more ceiling came tumbling down. 

Tesra directed a rather frightened look at Dr. Schbeiker. It was almost amusing. "Doctor, let's get out of here before the roof collapses. He's subdued for now. Once we get him to the truck there will be time to drug him safely." 

Dr. Schbeiker was looking pretty nervous himself. It did my black little heart no end to good. "A wise plan," he said, sticking the black case he held in his hand back into his pocket. "Let us, then." 

I closed my eyes and forced every muscle in my body to relax as they opened the door to my cage and yanked me out, then dumped me in the plastic crate. I stayed absolutely still until they slid the little door in place and locked it. Once we were moving, they weren't paying attention, so I slowly arranged myself into a much more comfortable position and waited, every nerve on edge. My opportunity was coming soon, I could feel it. 

We burst from a set of double doors as an explosion shook the building, sending acoustic tiles cascading to the floor. The lights in the hallway we'd just left flickered and died. It was getting close. 

Outside was the end of sunset, the entire world bathed in blood red by the dying sun. I couldn't recognize anything I saw; as I'd expected, they'd taken us to a different lab than the one we'd been captured at. Through the cracks in the crate, I could see the moon already risen, fat and full in the sky. The moon seemed to glow with its own light, beckoning me; it stirred my blood and made me bare my teeth. But more importantly, as the moon's weak light fell on my eyes, the power within that I'd been bereft of for what felt like years stirred and rose to greet it. 

"Did you say something, Doctor?" Tesra asked. 

"Not at all. Keep walking, please." The good doctor glanced back at the building, his movements nervous. Couldn't say I'd blame him, the way the masonry was starting to shake loose. 

I'd never realized until now what an integral part of me the magic was. I wouldn't forget the feeling of its return soon. It was like my blood had been thick and sluggish in my veins before; now it finally began to move, bringing warmth to my limbs. And there, yes, just barely on the edge of my sluggish perceptions, I could feel a tug. The voices of the restless dead were trying to call to me. I needed to hear them better. I needed the blood. 

Grimacing, I reached up and pinched my nose. It was enough to start it bleeding again, and I took a few drops on the tips of my fingers. Waiting for the moment that my captors were looking away, I stuck my fingers through one of the cracks and flicked the blood onto the concrete. 

Hallelujah! Once blind, but now could see. Once deaf, but now could hear. 

There were hundreds of them, in shallow tombs of poured concrete, each one filled with memories of pain, hatred, and terror. 

And, of course, the beautiful need for revenge. 

The sound of an idling truck reached my ears. I didn't have a lot of time for finesse. I bit into my right wrist, shut my eyes tightly, and tore. Blood began to patter down on the plastic. Not much, but enough. I stuck my entire hand through the crack this time, squeezing my fingers tightly so I'd bleed more and praying to whatever god watched me that it would be enough. 

They noticed me almost immediately, but it had been too late for them the moment they decided not to drug me. The crate jerked to a halt, and Dr. Schbeiker yelled at Tesra to grab my wrist. My skin was slick with blood; I pulled away from her grasp easily. They began working on the crate's door, but there was no way they were going to be quick enough. As little blood as it had been, it was enough. They had their own hatred to animate them; all they needed was my invitation. I flung back my head and screamed, "Rise, and take your vengeance!" 

For one terrible instant, there was silence. I could feel the dead turn in their graves, flexing their hands and stretching their legs. 

Then, all around us, the concrete cracked. It was loud like a gunshot as it buckled and writhed, torn apart by the hands of the dead. Tesra and Dr. Schbeiker were held still by their own confusion and growing horror. They backed away from me, realizing too late that they were surrounded by those they had buried. 

I let go of all the pain, anger, and anguish that I'd felt during the time in the lab, channeling it through the power that licked at my fingers. The emotion, echoed by the zombies erupting from the ground, changed the cool power to blackened violet fire that surrounded me like a shell. The raw power woke something in me that had been sleeping far longer than I'd been alive, far longer than even the world had lived. It opened its eyes, and I became someone... not Duo. 

The crate exploded, leaving me barefoot on the cracked concrete. Tesra and the good doctor had been blown away and lay sprawled across the ground like a couple of discarded toys. I watched curiously as they tried to get to their feet, surrounded by the monsters they'd created. Monsters they were indeed, men and women caught halfway between animal and human. Their fingers were talons, their teeth fangs. 

Sobbing with terror, Tesra scrambled to her feet, pulling her raven feather from her sleeve. Her eyes were open so wide I could see the whites all around. The fire surrounding me reflected in them. 

"Now, now," I said, waggling a finger at her, "it's far too late for that nonsense." I snapped my fingers, and the feather shattered like glass, becoming black dust that blew away in the wind. I held her in place with a simple gesture of the hand, turning my gaze to my zombies... my children. They gathered around Dr. Schbeiker in a sea, but none moved to touch the now shaking and pathetic man. They all looked at me, expectantly. 

"He is yours," I said, smiling as the doctor screamed. It was a beautiful, glorious sound. "Take your satisfaction from him and find peace in his death." 

They needed no other encouragement; they fell on him like starving rats, ripping and tearing. He didn't get a chance to scream again. 

"And now, you..." I turned my gaze back to Tesra. "Stupid, childish. Messing with that which you have no understanding of, and thinking you can control it with your pathetic toys. Disrupting the natural cycle of things, destroying the souls of your victims... and for this, I will give you a gift; I will give you another chance. I hope you will remember this lesson when the wheel turns again. I will be waiting and watching, little girl." She shook, struggling against the power that held her in place, and made little mewling sounds in her throat. As I walked toward her she made excuses, then begged, then fell to silent weeping. 

I touched her forehead like a priest giving benediction and looked into her, down at the base of her soul. It lay strangled in the black, twisted arms of something for which I had no name, but her life still shone strong and steady as a candle. "Remember well the God of Death's mercy," I said. Then like a candle, I snuffed her out. 

Tesra fell to the ground, a puppet whose strings had been cut. With detached interest, I watched the tattoos fade from her face until her skin was pale and pristine again. "Fools." 

When I turned, my zombies were watching me again. Not one stood without its mouth or claws stained with blood. "You have had your vengeance now," I said gently, as if to children. "It is time to truly rest." They shuffled back to their concrete tombs and sank into the ground. The broken concrete flowed back down into the pits like water, leaving it flat and smooth once again. I could feel as they settled comfortably and began their true sleep. The rage faded from the air, leaving only peace. 

And then, just as suddenly as it had come, I was just Duo again. I fell to my knees, bruising my legs and hands on the concrete. For a moment, I just shivered, feeling alone, cold, and horribly small. Then the feeling, and the memory of being so much more retreated, and I was able to stand again. The truck that had been waiting to receive me was gone; probably fled the minute the shit hit the fan. There was no sign of Milliard or Wufei. I also noticed that I was still bleeding all over the place. 

"Bloody hell!" I yelled, then added a few more curses for good measure. Nothing could really begin to express how upset I was. The wrist was just the icing on the cake. I didn't want to rip up my pants, since that was now the only thing standing between me and a decidedly chilly breeze. Dr. Schbeiker's lab coat lay on the ground, only a short distance away. It was even relatively clean; only a few blood spatters on it. Carefully skirting the smear on the concrete that had once been a man, I picked up the coat and tore made myself a passable bandage from one of the sleeves. There were a few odd lumps in its deep pockets. 

"Hello, what have we here..." I fished around, discarding a severed finger, then pulled out the black case. There was a thin gold chain tangled around its latch, and a locket hung from the chain. I pried the little bit of decorated gold open, and it revealed a picture of Hilde and a woman who could only have been her mother. Feeling like a voyeur, I stuck the locket in my pocket. It'd give it back to Hilde later, I figured. 

The box, though... I tried to make myself drop it. My fingers wouldn't let it go. I couldn't help but notice that my hands were beginning to tremble, ever so slightly. It was starting. 

A roar in the sky made me look up; Wing was flying overhead. Without really thinking about it, I shoved the case in my only intact pocket, then waved my arms at Heero as the booming steps of Sandrock and Heavyarms rumbled against the bottoms of my feet. I'd think about it later. For now, there were more important things to worry about, like trying to find Wufei and Milliard. Like getting some actual clothes. 


	14. Chapter 14

Anax Tristis 14 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 14_

It took Heero a little longer to find somewhere to land than I think I would have liked. That was pretty much my fault, really, considering that I was the reason the landing strip looked like someone had smashed all of the concrete up with a hammer. I stood a safe distance away while he landed Wing on the best patch of ground he could find, then approached once the engines has slowed down enough that the wind they created didn't threaten to knock me over. 

I could have just about cried when I saw the familiar figure of Posture King Yuy on Wing's ramp. I ran toward him like a starving man that just spotted an all you can eat buffet. Heero actually took a step back, his eyes wide with shock, as I lunged at him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. 

"Duo..." he started, his hands held up in surprise. 

"Just shut up," I said into his shirt. I actually was crying. I couldn't fucking believe it. But just touching Heero after so many weeks in the dark... deep in my mind, I guess I'd thought I was never going to see him or the rest of the guys again. So much for my optimism. "Don't say a fucking thing." 

Heero was a wise man; he shut up. Hesitantly, like he expected me to attack or run at any moment, he rested his hands on my bare shoulders. When I didn't do anything, he wrapped his arms around me, though everything about it felt wooden and uncertain. 

He didn't ask anything or even try to say anything again. He just held on to me as I cried a few pathetic, silent tears, then still kept holding on when I just didn't get around to pushing him away. The adrenalin that had given me the strength to run and keep to my feet slowly drained out of me, and he had to support more and more of my weight. It probably didn't help that my wrist was still bleeding. 

I don't know how long we would have stayed like that if the radio hadn't crackled to life with Quatre's concerned voice. "Zero-one, are you there? Status, please." 

Instead of dropping me like I half expected, Heero muscled me around so he could loop my arm around his neck, and walked me into Wing. His eyes narrowed as he finally caught sight of the bloody mess that was my wrist, not to mention the nice puddle it had made on the floor. Without comment, he dropped me into the pilot's chair and flipped on the radio as he tore a generous strip off the bottom of his shirt. "I have Zero-two. Objective accomplished. Returning to rendezvous point now." 

Even over the static of an encrypted radio frequency, Quatre sounded so relieved it hurt. "Affirmative. Maintain radio silence. Out." 

Heero knelt in front of me and wrapped the makeshift bandage around my wrist. I just watched him; just having someone there, just being free was enough for me. My heart was singing with joy; Quatre and Trowa would get Milliard and Wufei, and the nightmare would be over. We could start working on the revenge once we'd all had a shower and a bowl of hot soup. It was a nice thought. 

First aide done, Heero walked behind me for a moment, dragging a blanket out of a cabinet. He wrapped it around my shoulders, then lifted me up so he could sit down. I ended up draped across his lap and the arms of the chair; there really wasn't anywhere else for me to go. And it wasn't like I was going to complain anyway. 

Lift off was so gentle I almost didn't feel it; I hadn't realized that Heero was that delicate of a touch at the controls. He'd also just been very straight forward and kind of overpowered. Not a hotdog, exactly, but someone that really didn't give a shit about his own personal comfort. I just sat and listened to the sound of his breathing as we flew to whatever the rendezvous point was. It was enough to just remember that I was alive. That it was going to be okay. Who needed to talk when you had that? 

"What do you mean, you didn't see them?" I demanded. 

Heero frowned, a sure sign that he was getting irritated. I was way beyond that point myself, so I really didn't give a shit. "Our approach was from the south. The base was well fortified, so the attack was drawn out by necessity. If Wufei and the prisoner - " 

" – Milliard," I interrupted firmly. 

" - Milliard were loaded on to trucks for transport, they were gone before I completed my sweep north." 

"That's no excuse!" I half rose from my chair, only to be yanked back down by Quatre, who was attempting to bandage my wrist. My increasingly erratic movement wasn't making his job any easier. 

Heero glanced around, an automatic response to see if someone had noticed my outburst. In this case, it was a useless and silly gesture, since we were safe in the top floor of an apartment building at the edges of Nagoya that was still under construction. Trowa had found it, and they'd used it as their staging point for the rescue mission. The floors were still bare concrete, but the electricity and water worked, which was the important part. Heero lowered his voice to a dangerous level. "You know the way the Gundam HUDs work. I was unaware that there would be a reason to recalibrate them to register such small targets." 

"You were going in to an unknown situation!" 

Trowa, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed, looked up. "Which is precisely why it would have been unwise to clutter the HUDs with unnecessary targets." He narrowed his eyes. "Please think rationally." 

I wasn't feeling very rational, that was the problem. The gnawing in my belly was growing worse with each passing moment, twisting my bowels and cramping my muscles. The fire had started to spread through my nerves, making every joint ache. It was only a matter of time before I wouldn't even be able to breathe without pain, I knew. But that was the point. I knew, and they didn't, and I had my last few shreds of pride to think of. 

With a wooden but passable placating gesture, Heero continued. "I have already sent messages to our contacts. We're awaiting response." 

Emotion went off in me like a gun shot, infusing me with rage that had no rational explanation. "That's not good enough!" I shouted, then tore my hand from Quatre's grasp and slammed it down on the empty crate that was serving as a table. The glasses of water and cups of coffee jumped, while one lonely spoon went skittering to the floor. The half finished bandage came loose, and even better, my nose started bleeding again. 

Quatre scrambled to his feet, shoving a wad of gauze into my hand so I could stop dripping blood on the once clean shirt they'd given me. He planted a knee on my forearm, holding me still so he could finish his bandage. My fingers jittered and jerked, even though I tried to hold them still. He yanked the tails of the bandage into a knot, a little harder than he really needed to. Even Quatre was starting to lose patience. "Be reasonable, Duo," he said. 

"Reasonable? How the hell can I be reasonable? No one gets left behind. We all agreed to it. And now I'm free and they're still with those fucking...PSYCHOPATHS!" The last word was almost a howl, not so much because I was that upset, but because I needed to give voice to the pain somehow, before it drove me mad. 

Of maybe it already had. It was really starting to look that way. 

The corners of Heero's eyes were tight, like he was in pain himself when he spoke. "Do you have any better ideas, then?" 

I stopped, trying to think. I couldn't. My thoughts were jumbled, confused with the screaming of every nerve ending in my body. The only idea I really had was to lay on the floor and scream for a while, but that definitely wasn't a helpful one. Bitter anger filled my heart; how could my body and mind betray everyone like this, when clear thinking was most needed? Milliard and Wufei trapped, and the best we were doing was seeing if someone at the spaceport noticed anything. 

"Do you?" Heero asked. 

"Give me a minute," I mumbled, rubbing my temples with shaking fingers. When I looked up, all three of them were watching me with a sort of fascinated horror. I realized that I'd dropped the wad of gauze and was bleeding down the front of my shirt again. I fumbled for it on the floor, only succeeding in banging my head on the crate. 

"Duo..." Quatre began. 

"Just give me a minute, would you!" I yelled, lurching to my feet. I limped across the cold concrete to the apartment's bedroom, the only place that had its door yet. No one followed me. "I just need a minute to think." I shut and locked the door behind me. It wouldn't stop anyone if they wanted in, but it made a point. 

They weren't watching any more, so I didn't have to pretend. I stumbled to the nearest wall and slid down it, curling into a ball around the agony in my stomach. Tears squeezed out of my eyes, and my breath was a hiss through clenched teeth. I wanted to die, and it could probably be easily arranged - but first I had to hang on. I had to find Milliard and Wufei. But I also had to think for that, and when I tried to think there was the pain, over and over and over. 

The black case that I'd taken from Dr. Schbeiker's bloody lab coat appeared in my hand; that was the only way I could describe it. There was no thought on my part. The sight of it made me want to vomit. I knew what was inside - long, silver needles; vials of pale amber liquid; a waiting glass syringe; peace; the end of pain; euphoria. And I wanted it, oh God how I wanted it. 

"No," I whispered. With all my strength, I threw the case away. 

Someone knocked on the door. "Give me a minute!" I yelled. 

"Duo," Heero began. 

"Goddamnit, Yuy, I said give me a fucking minute!" 

Silence, and then another voice, much calmer. Trowa. "Duo, I'm coming in." The lock on the door clicked off. He didn't give me a chance to tell him to fuck off; the moment he was done speaking, he opened the door just far enough for him to slip in. Considering how skinny Trowa was, it didn't leave any space for peeking in. He locked the door behind him, then took in the lovely little scene without a comment or so much as an eyebrow twitch. The black case was at his feet; he picked it up and walked over to me. 

"No..." I moaned, shutting my eyes tightly so I wouldn't have to look at it. 

Cool fingers brushed the sweaty, stringy locks of hair away from my forehead. The shock made me look. I hadn't been imagining it; Trowa knelt beside me, the dreaded black case in one hand, smoothing my hair with the other. 

"I can't, Trowa. I just can't." 

He didn't ask what I meant. Somehow, he knew the five million contradicting things I absolutely could not do. "I understand, Duo," he murmured, "more than you'll ever know. I've felt this pain before." 

"I want..." I started, then the words choked off as I clutched at my stomach. 

"Listen, Duo. You know in your heart what you need to do now." 

I shook my head. "I don't want to... I can't!" 

"You can, and will. You know what's at stake." 

And God help me, I did want it. With a shaking hand, I pulled the sleeve of my shirt up. "Before I change my mind, hurry." I gasped out. 

He opened the case and put the syringe together with practiced ease. "How much?" 

"Full dose is too much...leaves me comatose," I said, trying to remain calm. "A third. In the muscle." 

He nodded once, then drew the amber drug into the syringe. I barely felt the poke of the needle; all I knew was the wave of heat that washed through me, miraculously stilling my screaming nerves. "Better?" He asked after I'd had a moment. 

I sat up, wiggling my fingers to ease the cramps in my hands. I didn't want to look him in the eye. "It depends on how you mean." 

"Able to perform the necessary function for mission completion?" 

I snorted. "You sound like Heero." 

"There are worse things." 

I reached out and took the syringe from him, and the vial. I stared at them for a long time, wanting so many things that I couldn't even begin to articulate. Then I threw them onto the concrete floor. They made a satisfying smash. "Never again. This was the last time." 

Trowa wasn't the least bit surprised. "Then it would behoove us to find Wufei and Milliard quickly." 

"Yeah." I nodded. Before we reached the door, I grabbed his sleeve. "Trowa..." 

"Yes?" 

"Don't... don't tell them, okay?" 

He raised an eyebrow. "I think they already know, Duo. They have eyes." 

"But it's one thing... to think. I don't want to hear it said. I can't stand it." 

Trowa nodded. "I understand. I will say nothing." 

Quatre and Heero were smart; they didn't say anything either when I preceded Trowa out of the room, a bounce in my step and a sparkle in my eye. Maybe they really believed the act. Maybe they did know what was going on but were trying to help me with my lie. Either way, it was fine with me. Quatre handed me a kleenex, which I tore in two and stuffed up my nose. 

"So," I said, "I have an idea. Just like I said I would - I needed a minute to think, was all." And the hell of it was, I wasn't really lying about it. 

"What is the plan?" Heero asked. 

"You got your laptop with you?" 

He just pointed back to one corner, where the slim little computer sat in a nest of wires. "The network connection in this building has been temporarily enabled," he said, his lips twitching just a little. 

Maybe if my brain hadn't been going into weirdness overdrive, I would have found it cute. "Great." Without asking for permission, I walked over and sat down in front of the mini-beast, cracking my knuckles in my best theatrical fashion. A small corner of my mind was amused to notice that Heero's background was a technical schematic for a mobile suit gyro. The rest of my brain was buzzing along and didn't give a shit as I opened up the network connection and got to work. 

I had to be insane. It had been months since the last time I'd hacked into a defense net, and even then I'd had my defense progs to back me up. And now here I was, thinking I could outfox the best programmers in the world while injured, sleep-deprived, and - best of all - drugged out of my gourd. 

What the hell, you only live once. 

Everything seemed slow and a little surreal, like I was watching from high above in omnipotent glory. I half expected for the numbers to start flowing out of the screen so I could play with them and twist them with my fingers. The scariest part of it all was how easy it seemed. 

I whipped through the lower level secure networks like a ghost; they probably didn't even register I was there. Security got pushed aside and I started skating across the ice, looking for weak places to drill through. The experience became more and more real in my mind, until it was actually me dodging through the network, not just typing on a computer. 

The next instant, I was on top of a wall of military red ice, and the utter simplicity of it made me laugh. I twisted the code around until it became a meaningless series of numbers and the wall shattered, throwing me right into the Oz defense nets. Somewhere, in a tiny base dug into the side of a mountain, alarms were probably going off like crazy. The image of little hacker geeks, shoved into ill-fitting uniforms, running around and poking at buttons that no longer worked while klaxons sounded was highly amusing. 

I remembered where to go next from my last hack job; they kept their satellite data feeds bundled and secure, and I knew where they were out of. 

"Duo," Heero said, breaking through my concentration, "They know you're there." 

"Yeah, and it doesn't matter. They're too slow. I'll be out and gone before they have a chance to sic a tracer on me. Time is of the essence; delicacy takes too long." I began to hammer my way through the veritable glacier that surrounded the satellite feeds, ripping and tearing at the ice until all at once, it shattered. 

Quatre was leaning over my shoulder now, his eyes fixed on the screen. "Amazing..." he breathed. He wasn't much of a computer guy, himself. He seemed to find geeks in action to be absolutely fascinating because of that fact. 

I laughed. "Dude, lemme show you my progs sometime. This might be quick, but they're damn pretty. Art is subtle. I'm a fucking sledge hammer." I selected the data stream I wanted and hitched a ride on a packet, right up to the satellite's computer. "What time did you guys pick me up?" 

"1917." Quatre said. 

"Excellent." The satellite still had the pictures from then stored; I grabbed them all. The moment they were done downloading, I reached around the laptop and yanked the network cord out of the wall. Messy, yeah, but quick. "Okay, then. Quatre, you're the best with maps. Get looking." 

I walked away without another word, heading over to the crate that wanted to be a table. There was a paper bag sitting next to it that I could have sworn was calling my name. The rest of the guys stayed huddled around the laptop, watching as Quatre put the pictures together and started searching. Trowa was pretty good at making minute adjustments, and Heero needed to pay attention since he was the only one that had a natural idea of what shit looked like from the sky. 

The paper bag was full of instant noodle cups. Not exactly gourmet, but I wasn't going to complain. I picked a spicy shrimp one and yanked the tab; it was hot in about two minutes, and I wolfed it down while it was still steaming. It scalded my tongue, but damn it felt good. I had another one heating up before I'd even discarded my empty. 

I was halfway through pork and egg when Quatre shut the laptop. "We've found them. They went off the satellite's view about an hour ago, but if they're trying to run, there's only one place they could be going." 

"Oh?" I slurped up some more noodles. 

"Remember the independent airstrip about forty Ks south? That's the best bet, in my mind. No one will ask questions." Quatre combed his hair back with his fingers. "From what I remember of the layout, this is going to have to be a foot mission; we can't really operate with the Gundams since we'd face a real risk of taking out Wufei and... Milliard." 

"Here's what I'm thinking," I said, the battle plan already forming up in my head. "We call Noin, and we call Johannes. We have their culprits, and both sides promised to give us any aide we would require. So we bring them in, and we let them do the dirty work. Or most of it, at least." 

Quatre nodded, but he didn't look happy. "It would certainly make things easier and up our chances of succeeding. If you're certain we can depend upon them." 

I chewed on a rubber bit of reconstituted egg. Just what a growing boy needs. "Certainty has nothing to do with this. It's a hope and a prayer. I don't trust vampires, but I'm at the next best thing to trusting how utterly pissed off these two were that their people got fucked with." 

"It's...feasible," Heero said. His expression said very clearly that he didn't like the idea one bit, but he could suck it up and deal. I'd said that no one got left behind. I had no intention of becoming a promise breaker now, or ever. 

I finished the noodle cup in one gulp, then tossed it over my shoulder. I felt like a million bucks, like I could run forever and never get winded. I could hate myself for it later. "Then let's get going. We have work to do." 


	15. Chapter 15

ï»¿ Anax Tristis 15 

Anax Tristis  
_Chapter 15_

Troop transports were never designed for comfort; they were like glorified cattle cars, whether on the land, air, or sea. This one was no exception. It rumbled along the road, making noises like an elephant with laryngitis every now and then, and any bump we hit set my teeth rattling. Oz must have ordered extra special bad shocks from Satan himself to get this piece of work on the road. The sad part was, we were in the nicest transport they had, dubbed the "Command Bus" - the four of us, plus Noin, Johannes, Ivan, and Tony. Johannes and Noin were doing their best to ignore each other, which only made things that much more uncomfortable. Quatre had managed to get Ivan and Tony engaged in a lively game of rummy with him and Trowa, at least, probably to pass the time and break the tension more than anything else. Heero was the only one missing - he would be rendezvousing with us, bringing Wing along. He'd have to park it and hoof in like the rest of us, but that meant we had access to our only flying Gundam if things took a serious shit. Never hurt to have a backup plan. 

"How much longer?" I asked Noin. 

She looked up from where she'd been bent over, re-lacing her combat boots. She'd come out in the transports loaded for bear, in full military gear. It was almost disturbing, especially considering every other vampire was still dressed like they were about to hit the set of some period romance. "We're nearly at the staging area. From there, we'll be taking the two miles on foot. I don't want to give them any advance warning that we're coming." 

Johannes, who had been leaning back with his arms crossed, pretending to sleep, cracked his eyes open. "Running?" 

"Yes, running. The land is flat and sound will carry; we don't want to give them any warning. From the satellite reports, they seem to be taking their time and feeling fairly secure. It's in our best interest that they continue to do so." 

"Of course, my lady," Johannes said. "You are the military expert; I bow to your knowledge." 

Noin frowned, looking like she really wished she could take anything in his statement as an insult, but he'd said it without even the tiniest hint of irony. If I'd been feeling nice, I probably would have warned her that it was impossible to catch the bastard out when it came to being polite. But I was having way too much fun watching them annoy each other. 

"Any luck commandeering some more MS for air support? I mean, Heero's the man and all, but it never hurts to backup our backup." I said, even though I already knew the answer. 

Noin shook her head. "Most of our forces are otherwise engaged. We have ground MS available, but I have chosen not to bring them in for the same reason that you have left your Gundams behind." 

"We want to rescue, not destroy." 

"Exactly." She pulled the laces of her boots tight and tied them off, then sat up. 

I couldn't help myself. I had to ask. "Noin, you're from Germany, right?" 

Her eyes narrowed. "At one point, yes." 

"Do you have family still living there?" 

"Why do you want to know?" She demanded. 

"Hey, no big deal. Just curious." I gave her my best disarming grin. 

Noin crossed her arms, frowning. "I don't honestly know any longer. At one point I did, but I ceased to keep track of them. It became rather... painful." 

"Good an answer as any." I checked my watch, then turned my attention to Quatre's little card game. If the facial expressions were any indication, Ivan was winning, and by a lot. "Hey guys, pack it in. We're almost there." 

"Alright. Perhaps we'll be able to play again some time," Quatre said, gathering the cards up. "This was a great deal of fun." 

Ivan smiled as he made a neat stack of his cards and handed it over. "Quite. I was unaware of this variation to the game, and it makes it a great deal more interesting. I'll have to teach my fellows." 

"I still think we shoulda played poker. I coulda cleaned all of you out," Tony muttered. 

"Perhaps next time. I could do with the occasional poker game, I think," Ivan said, clapping the were-tiger on the back. And Tony, oddly enough laughed and shook his hand. 

It was nice to know that some people could play nice, I guess. I shook my head and checked the placement of my weapons for the second time in five minutes, making certain that the knife in my sleeve could pull free with no problem, and that I had plenty of extra round for my handguns. I wasn't taking any chances with this. 

The transport began to slow, then the ride got suddenly bumpier as it left the main road and went into a field. I had to hold on to my seat for dear life to keep from being thrown to the floor. Eventually, we ground to a halt and Noin stood, picking up her assault rifle and slinging it across her back. "We've arrived." 

"No, really?" I muttered under my breath. We hopped out of the transport and into a field where the rest of the troops were gathering. It was an odd assortment of humans (courtesy of Johannes), werewolves (courtesy of Noin), and a handful of vampires (belonging to both). 

Noin stood on the rear gate of one of the transports. "Give me your attention!" she shouted. "We'll approach the air field from all directions at once. I will take the majority of the wolf pack and head south - it's the furthest away and also the riskiest side. Duo, you and your team will take the north side; you have the smallest group and it is the most lightly guarded." She smiled. "Plus it is the shortest distance to run. The rest we shall split in two, to take the east and west approaches. Master Johannes, I suggest that you choose one team to stay with; I shall send Ivan with the other." 

"As you wish, my lady," he said, beckoning Tony over to him. The two had a hurried conversation. 

"In that case, Duo, I suggest you start running now if you wish to reach the base in time," Noin said, an odd little smile quirking at her lips. 

I refused to rise to the bait. "Aye, ma'am. Let's go, guys." I jerked my chin, and we trotted away, heading for the airstrip. 

A moment later, Tony ran up to catch us. "I'm going with you guys," he said. 

"What makes you think that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"Master Johannes told me to. You might need some extra muscles, but he figures that I'm the only one you'll be willing to work with." Tony smiled, earnest as a boy scout. I was starting to have a real hard time saying no to the guy. 

So instead, I laughed. "Sure thing, man. Good to have you aboard." Life had been a lot easier before the monsters got to be so damn likeable. 

We ran the two miles to the base in utter silence, moving easily over the flat land that had probably been a farmer's field at one point. The smell of earth was rich in my nose, and I felt like I could keep going and never stop until I ran off the edge of the world. As we approached the chain link fence surrounding the run-down little airstrip, there was a momentary pang of desire in my heart, to keep running and never look back. 

That got squashed nice and quick. It was nice when intoxication induced thoughts were easy to pick out. 

As we approached the gates, Tony slowed. "I'll catch up with you in just a minute. You oughta be able to get through the gate without me." 

Quatre and I dropped back, covering the two gate guards with our guns. With any luck, it wouldn't be necessary to shoot them. I wasn't a real advocate of the unnecessary killing thing, plus it was damn noisy. We needn't have worried. The guards were facing each other, sharing a smoke and talking about God knows what. Heero and Trowa simply ran in from behind and pistol whipped them both in nearly perfect unison. They beckoned us forward as they eased the unconscious guards to the ground. 

I examined the small panel that controlled the gate lock and had to make a face at how pathetic it was. All I had to do was yank off the plate and cross two wires - yellow and red. The gate opened with a great deal more squealing and metallic protests than we really wanted, but it was still quicker and less risky than hopping the fence. 

The makeshift hangar where the plane sat, ready to be loaded, was on the opposite end of the strip from us. We took off running again. 

The perimeter guards around the hangar were a different story entirely from the first two. They were well trained, quite possibly even current military depending upon how dirty the higher ups had decided to get their hands. We spread out along their line, trying to take down as many sentries as possible without alerting the others. 

My guard was a tall drink of water with a mustache and a really bad haircut. He was reaching for his gun when I jumped at him from the shadows, snapping my leg up to kick him squarely in the jaw. He went down like a ton of bricks. I dragged his limp form back into the shadows from which I'd come, then approaching footsteps sent me scrambling for the dubious cover of a stack of storage crates. It must have been an especially lucky day for me - the person followed me right behind the crates, turning the corner and coming face to face with my guns. 

Even luckier than lucky. It was one of the witch women in her ubiquitous black cloak. 

I didn't even give her a chance to reach for her damn feather. I opened up with both guns, trusting in my silencers, and doing my best John Woo impression. She probably didn't know what hit her; she fell back into an untidy heap, smoke curling from her face. I gave the odd sight an idle look as I passed by; the tattoos on her face were blackening and curling up, then turning into ash and drifting away. 

Eerie. Weird. I'd think about it when I had time and actually gave a shit. 

More footsteps. I popped up from behind my crates, to find a guard bearing down on me. I grinned and popped him in the head. That was all it took to take him down. Agonizing cold suddenly washed over me, and a black-gloved hand fell on my shoulder. My muscles instantly locked, and I missed shooting myself in the foot by a hope and a prayer. 

"I recognize you," a woman said. And I recognized her too, by voice alone. She'd helped hold me down for injections a lot. "How nice of you to come back to us, and just in - " 

She didn't have a chance to finish her sentence. All I saw was a ghostly blur to one side, barreling toward me. She didn't even have time to scream. Something yanked her away, and I was free, if a little chilly. I whipped around, bringing my guns to bear... 

...on a white tiger. He still had his teeth firmly locked around her neck, and his muzzle sported a candy coating of bright red blood. With a look of near disgust, he spat her out on the ground next to the one I'd killed. Smoke curled up from her face as well. 

And then the tiger winked one bright blue eye at me. 

Tony. Of course. I gave him the thumbs up, and off he ran, silent on the concrete. I shook my head and followed, catching sight of Heero as he rounded one of the smaller storage sheds. We were almost at the hanger, and that was a good thing, considering the plane was starting to heat its engines up. The crew of guards and Elvira wannabes had finished loading most of the boxes onto the plane. All that was left were two plastic crates. 

Two very familiar plastic crates. 

As we ran toward them, a couple of witches grabbed the first crate and started moving it up the ramp. Not on my watch, they weren't. I drew my guns again and opened up, all thought of stealth now abandoned. Instead of letting go and ducking like any normal civilian, the bitches did the thing I'd really been hoping against - the redoubled their efforts, yanked the crate up the ramp with a mighty heave, and started the cargo doors closing. 

I really hated it when my enemies had apparently forgotten to read their part of the script, paying careful attention to the "stupid mistakes to make" section. 

Suddenly, more gunfire lit up the night, and people began to scream. I could make out some shadowy shapes, one of which turned to look at me with eyes that glowed like blue flame. Johannes and Ivan, joining the battle. The vampires were rending and tearing with their teeth, knocking the guards down like bowling pins, while the humans covered the area with a hail of bullets. There was no sign of Noin and her pack. 

Witches came pouring out of the warehouse, reaching into their sleeves. Cold slammed against me in a wave. It was strong enough now with so many of them present that it dropped me to my knees and stopped the other guys in their tracks. The vampires froze in place, and in the distance I could swear I heard the pained snarl of a tiger. Even they could feel it. 

I bared my teeth into a smile and yanked my knife out of my sleeve. I knew what to do, somehow. I could remember it clearly. Without a second of hesitation, I added a new cut to my collection of scars, directly above the white bandage Quatre had already wound around my right wrist. The blood rained down on the field with an odd sort of gentleness, and the world burst into my mind. The witches were like voids in the ever changing tapestry around me. And their feathers? A different matter entirely, things that made me ill with their energy and with the knowledge of their purpose. 

I gathered my power up, changing it into arrows by the hundreds, aimed at the feathers. I clapped my hands together, releasing them; in my minds eye, they flowed true, bringing with them the natural destruction that something so horribly unnatural needed. The wave of power sent them staggering back; it drove Quatre to his knees, and he covered his ears with his hands and cried out. 

The feathers shattered into ash. 

"Get them, NOW!" I shouted, then slumped over, breathing like I'd just run a marathon. Funny, but I could have sworn that the little trick shouldn't have taken so much effort. It certainly hadn't before. Or at least I didn't think so - I couldn't quite remember anything about 'last time' to begin with. 

The battle raged on around me, turning the concrete airfield into a sea of gore. The witches, deprived of their magical toys, drew obsidian knives and set to work. For each of them that fell, they took at least two with them, sending humans down with blood spraying from their throats, or turning the vampires to ash. We weren't doing nearly as well as we had thought. The witches moved in ways that no human could, sometimes flowing like water. It was hard to catch them. 

I felt like someone had drained every drop of blood from my body - I was pretty much useless, every drop of energy I had spent in the effort of destroying the feathers. Even worse, pain was gnawing at my stomach, twisting my guts. The drug was starting to wear off. 

And worst of all, the plane's engines reached a fevered pitch, and it began to move, taxiing toward the runway. Shooting it didn't do any good; it was armored. One guy made the mistake of getting in front of it, trying to take a difficult shot into the left engine. The landing gear hit him and turned him into an eight meter long smear. Then fire flared from one engine, roaring and strong - it had to be Heero's doing. For a moment, I allowed myself to hope. Then the flame guttered, turning sickly green, and went out. 

There was a meaty thud to one side, and I turned, falling back onto my butt. A witch stood there, blood dripping from her black knife, a corpse at her feet. I picked up my guns, smearing blood onto the muzzles, and fired. She tried to dodge, tried to twist out of the way, but her movements were to slow. The bullets took her in the head, and she went down with a loud screech. 

Howling filled the night, overriding the sounds of the battle and making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. From the south, there came monsters; wolves that stood nearly as tall as me at the shoulder. Fear washed over me like a wave, and for a moment, all I wanted to do was run, and not in the happy drugged way either. If they'd been after me, I probably would have. 

They crashed against the witches, tearing throats and ripping at bellies. Even if they were at a disadvantage for speed, their sheer numbers overwhelmed the enemy. It was over in a matter of minutes, the eerie howls ending when the last witch fell. Instead, the moans of the wounded filled the air, and above it all was the scream of the plane engines. 

And then the roar of a plane taking to the air. I tried to scream my frustration, but the best I could produce was a low, despairing moan. 

Ivan hurried over to me. His mouth was covered with red smears, his normally neat hair mussed. The hand he offered me was tacky with drying blood, but I wasn't going to complain; I needed the help standing. "Noin is calling for air support, and we will do our best to track the plane. There is still hope." 

There wasn't much else I could say - it wouldn't have been fair to take everything out on Ivan, no matter how tempting it was. "Has the crate been opened yet?" 

"The battle just ended, Duo." 

"Let's do it, then. Which ever one it is, we should let him out." Ivan and I walked over to the crate as quickly as we could. The pain in my belly continued to grow; I couldn't stand up straight. Ivan ripped the crate apart with his bare hands, not even grunting with the effort. He lifted the man inside out, setting him gently down on the field. 

It was Wufei. He was curled up in a ball, shaking and shivering, covered with a sheen of sweat. His hands were curled into fists, so tightly that crimson threads of blood ran from beneath his fingernails. The moment Ivan ripped the top off the crate and the moonlight touched him, he moaned with pain. 

"Wufei!" I fell to my knees beside him. "Talk to me, Wufei, Please, talk to me." 

His voice was a ragged whisper. "I'm losing control, Duo. Help me..." 

"They took Milliard, 'Fei. We couldn't stop them. They're flying off with him now." I covered my face with my hands. 

"I..." Wufei's mouth open and shut a few times, and then he continued, "I can...fly...but...NO! I don't want to lose control. I can't!" 

I yanked him around to face me with strength born of madness. He was strangely limp against my hands. "Are you saying that you might be able to stop this? Is that it? That you're afraid to? Damnit, Wufei, I don't care what the hell you're afraid of. If there's a way to win this and you don't take it, than nothing we've ever said means a fucking thing!" I grabbed him by the chin, forcing him to look into my eyes. "No one gets left behind. Are those words empty? Fucking let it GO!" 

For a moment, he said nothing, his body jerking with spasms of pain. Suddenly, he stilled. His eyes were full of sadness older than the world; it was a look I would never forget. "Pray that you're right," he said. 

The world held its breath as Wufei let go. 

He exploded - there was no better word for it. It was wind and fury and a roar that sounded like a million deep bronze temple bells sounding. The force of it threw me back into Ivan, who was hard pressed to stand his ground. Around us, people fell to their knees, clutching their ears and covering their eyes. The werewolves howled, the sound edged with fear. 

Where Wufei had once been, there was a dragon, bigger than a mobile suit. Its scales were dusty gold, the crests and spines that ran up and down its body the deep green of the forest. Each foot had five claws of pure diamond; a black pearl set in its forehead shone with light that made my head ache. 

And when it looked at me, its eyes were Wufei's, but a million, a billion years older. 

The dragon threw back its head and roared, the sound of mountains grinding into sand and trees thrusting their roots into the ground. Then he leapt into the air, and flew. 

The earth began to shake, the familiar feeling of an earthquake. But the rumbling didn't stop. 

The dragon that was Wufei twisted through the air sinuously like a snake, shooting toward the disappearing blot that was the plane. He sped up until he became a golden blur across the night, striking the plane. An instant later, it exploded into shards of metal and fire. 

And still the ground shook, the tremors increasing with strength. The concrete airstrip cracked and popped, twisting like it was trying to give birth to something. 

The dragon flew back, more slowly this time, something held carefully in its front feet. Somehow it landed, setting its burden gently on the ground. Somehow, I struggled to my feet, and half-ran, half-fell toward him. The dragon bowed his head, his outline becoming fuzzy and diffuse. Before my eyes, he unraveled into strings of gold and green energy that sank into the ground. 

As suddenly as it had come, the quake stopped. 

All that was left was Wufei, standing naked where the dragon's head had once been. He looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers carefully, then crumpled down to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I ran to him and fell to my knees beside him, pulling his head onto my lap while my shaking fingers searched for a pulse. It was there, slow and strong. 

The horrified scream of a woman pierced the air; it took me a moment to realize that the voice was Noin's. "Milliard, NO!" She screamed again, running toward the still form that lay where Wufei had placed it. All that I could recognize him by was his hair; the rest of him was a bloody mess that barely registered as a human body any longer. She dropped down beside him, pink tinged tears running down her cheeks. When she bent down to whisper in his ear, I had to look away. It was too real, and far too painful. 

When I looked back up, she was tearing her own wrist open with her teeth, and holding the wound over his mouth, letting her blood rain down. After several drops had gone down his throat, she bent and kissed him on the forehead, then stood. The terrible wounds that covered him began to knit, skin coming together seamlessly. 

Noin walked over to me and knelt, reaching out to touch Wufei's forehead. "I don't know whether I should thank you or not," she said. 

It didn't make any sense. Not that anything that had happened tonight had. "What happened to him?" 

She looked as if she'd aged a hundred years in the space of a moment; it was disturbing to see in a vampire. "I couldn't let him go, Duo. I should have, but I couldn't. And I don't know if he'll ever forgive me." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I made him mine, Duo. I forced him to become one with the beast that now lives within him, and I made him mine. He cannot die." 

A sharp stab of pain ran through me, and it took me a moment to remember how to breathe again. When I looked back up, she had regained her composure, but it still hurt me to look at her and see the pain still raw in her eyes. She was a monster, right? She didn't have the right to look so human. Instead, I concentrated on smoothing out Wufei's hair. Around us, the others hurried back and forth, sorting out the wounded, laying out the dead. Quatre was hurrying in our direction, his arms full of blankets and worry shining on his face. 

"I think, Noin," I said, the pain making my voice hoarse, "That a lot of things have happened tonight that will never be forgiven." 


	16. Epilogue

ï»¿ Anax Tristis Epilogue 

Anax Tristis  
_Epilogue_

We went deep into the farmlands, to a house that Quatre had found for us, normally used by politicians for clandestine meetings. By the time we had reached it, the gnawing pain had grown until I could barely walk. The only comfort I had was that Wufei had begun to regain consciousness, waking up long enough to ask for a cup of tea before falling back into an exhausted sleep he couldn't be woken from. 

The house was sturdy, made of brick and wood. Heero tried to help me out of the car Noin had loaned to us. Trowa stepped in front of him, staring at him until he backed down, then suggested that he help Quatre unload our supplies. I should have been surprised by that, but everything hurt too much to think. 

So it was Trowa that I used as support to get inside. He led me down the hall, to a small bedroom in the back. It was empty except for an old mattress that took up most of the floor. 

"I only wish I could take your pain from you," he said. 

I tried to laugh. "I wish you could as well. Or better yet, we could give it to someone that deserves it." 

He helped me sit down on the mattress. "This was the best I could do. We should really send you to a hospital, Duo, but I didn't think you would agree. And I don't want to leave you in the hands of strangers." 

I nodded. "I knew this was coming the moment they...came at me with the needle. I kind of hoped for it, you know, because it would mean that I was alive and free." 

"I don't know how long it'll take or how much it'll hurt. But we will be here through it all, and we will watch over you." 

I lay down on the mattress, slowly like I was a hundred years old. It didn't help the pain at all. "Thank you." 

Trowa touched my forehead briefly, his eyes clouded with remembered pain. "I believe in your strength." 

I chuckled. "I hope by the time this is done, I still do as well." 

There wasn't anything left to say; he stood and walked out, closing the door behind him. There was the loud 'snick' of a lock sliding into place. I stared at the water stain on the wall, and let the pain wash over me as the drug drained from my system. 

And so I was trapped behind walls that would not yield and a door that wouldn't open, wouldn't let me run out to search for a way to end the need that turned every cell in my body to searing fire. I pounded on those walls with bloody fists and left fingernail gouges in the wood of the door. 

In one terrible, downward rush, I lost my mind. 

Once, I heard Trowa and Heero arguing. I heard the doorknob rattle, and a scuffle. I heard Quatre yelling, and more angry words from Heero. I heard footsteps pace. 

And then I heard nothing at all but my own agonized screaming for a long, long time. 


End file.
